


Turn and Speak, Memory

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artificial Intelligence, Canon Compliant, Chatlogs, Coda Challenge @The FitzSimmons Network, Established Relationship, F/M, Flashbacks, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Naked Cuddling, POV Jemma Simmons, POV Leo Fitz, Post-Coital Cuddling, Sexual Content, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-08-31 09:49:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8573647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: When Fitz dies at Momentum Labs, Jemma does everything she can to bring him back - even if all she can do is feed his words into a chat program.But a shadow of Fitz is not enough. And the longer she spends perfecting the chat program, the more she learns about things that should be impossible.
  A Doctor Who: Turn Left AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The original inspiration for this AU is an article in The Verge, whose title is "Speak, Memory" (after Nabokov's memoir) and whose summary is "[When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence.](http://www.theverge.com/a/luka-artificial-intelligence-memorial-roman-mazurenko-bot)" True story, very interesting article.
> 
> I decided to combine this with the Doctor Who episode _Turn Left_ (because I don't like unhappy endings), and so that's what we have here. Spoiler alert: It ends well for our OTP, but it gets sad before it gets better.
> 
> I am... so sorry, lmao.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _love is not a victory march / it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah_

_Six months after Fitz’s death_

 

The last time Jemma had spoken to Fitz, she’d refused to forgive him. 

Months had passed, now, but she regretted it every day. In retrospect, it had been petty for her to hold onto that sliver of hurt so tightly, the problem at the heart of their argument having ultimately been a catch-22. Even so, knowing that there had been something new and hidden worming its way between them as they’d planned to rent an apartment together had torn at something fragile inside of herself. The inner voice that had once worried he’d never trust her again after she’d gone undercover (abandoning him, abandoning their friendship, abandoning her own life) had wondered if this was why he’d kept the android hidden. But the past was finite, unchangeable, and her private cross to bear.

Today was the six-month anniversary of Fitz’s death, and all she could do was replay their last, stupid conversation on a loop in her head.

When she’d awoken this morning, she’d received a sweet note from Mrs. Fitz, checking in on her and delivering two poorly scanned photos of Fitz as a child. They were pictures she’d seen before, of course; when she’d gone back to Glasgow for the funeral, she’d spent days doing nothing but sitting by the older woman and reminiscing about her son. For someone who professed that she had no concept of the things that Fitz did for fun at either school or work, she had an endless supply of stories and pictures to tell. In most of the pictures, he had refused to smile, which had apparently vexed his mother to no end but only made Jemma laugh. Once, she had shyly shown Mrs. Fitz the few pictures she’d taken where he _had_ smiled, and the older woman had burst into tears and thrown her arms around Jemma’s neck.

“You were always such a gift,” Mrs. Fitz had choked out against her cheek. “To him, and to me, now. Thank you, sweetheart.” 

Jemma hadn’t asked her to elaborate; she neither wanted nor needed praise for something that was now a moot point.

The Playground buzzed at its usual, low hum of activity, although the whole base continued to be on high alert – as it had been for most of the past few months. War among the Inhumans, humans, and other humans had been raging without any apparent end in sight, and sometimes Jemma was almost glad she spent all of her days cooped up between bricks and beams. Sometimes, it didn’t seem like there was anything good left outside of these walls. Not that there was much good left within them, either. 

But today she felt atypically antsy, tapping her fingers ceaselessly against the countertop next to her computer. She’d always preferred to stand while she worked, so that she could flit about to check on experiments or go lean over Fitz’s shoulder to watch as he worked, but now that just fed into her restless mood.

It didn’t help that she kept feeling like people were staring at her but then looking away as soon as she turned around.

The feeling was almost certainly paranoid; the odds of anyone else other than her remembering or marking the sixth month after the Momentum incident were astronomically low. But she still couldn’t shake the pinpricks along the back of her neck.

That had been one of the things that she’d hated the most right after she’d returned from the funeral: the pity. The people who tiptoed around her, the people who tried so hard not to stare that they wouldn’t meet her eyes at all, the people who were able to go about their daily lives but still acted as if they had any concept of what she was going through.

Some of them, of course, did. One late night when they’d run into each other in the mess hall, Piper had quietly shared the story of how her high school sweetheart had died at a young age. The girl had been driving home from school and a drunk driver had sped through an intersection. When Jemma had tried offering Piper sympathy, the other woman had waved her off. 

“I didn’t... do it for that, Agent Simmons. But talking helps, sometimes, y’know, so... we’re here if you need us. Everyone, all of SHIELD.”

Jemma had just nodded in silence, tears threatening at the corner of her eyes, as the junior agent had awkwardly patted her arm and strode off.

The problem, of course, was that Jemma would trade every single person in SHIELD for one lifetime with Fitz. Or, at least, one more chance to say goodbye.

 

\------

 

_Seven months before Fitz’s death_

 

A peal of laughter sounded from Jemma’s throat as Fitz dragged her into a storage closet in the hallway just outside of the lab.

“Fitz, what –?!”

But her words were stopped with a soft “ _mmph_ ” as he captured her mouth with his, pressing her insistently against the wall. With a pleased hum, she curved one arm around his neck and arched up into him, earning her the groan that she’d been seeking. He plied her lips open, darting his tongue in before drawing away again, and a wash of wanting spread through her whole body. 

“We can’t,” she protested quietly, although her voice was a little too throaty and her grip on his shoulder a little too hard for her sentiment to be taken seriously. Instead of listening, he suckled at a tender spot on her neck that he’d learned mere days before in Bucharest, using his hands to draw her up and press their hips together. Jemma whimpered, breath panting sharply out of her lungs. “We have work to do, you have to keep out Daisy’s hacks....” 

“Can’t do anything at the moment,” he mumbled against her neck, his stubble scratching teasingly against her skin and bringing up a few choice memories from just the night before. “It’s a waiting game –”

“But we have other things... and what if –” She broke off as he shuffled them around to lift her up onto a large, wooden box. When she was seated, she caught a glimpse of the deep navy of his eyes, and her arguments flew right out of her head. It was reckless and irresponsible and, _God_ , Jemma had never wanted anything more in that moment than to feel her best friend lose control inside her. “Condom?” she asked breathlessly, and panic flashed across his face.

Before he could back away from her and speed out the door, as she suspected he was seconds away from doing, Jemma hooked her legs around his hips and then reached around to pat down his arse. Befuddlement crossed his features before understanding caught as she pulled his wallet out of his back trousers pocket.

“But I...” he said, trailing off as she slid out a condom packet from the billfold. “What in the hell is _that_ doing there?” 

“We were almost caught unprepared in Bucharest,” she explained primly, placing both the condom and the wallet on the wide surface of the box next to her. “I took the liberty of making sure we were supplied in case we needed one again, since you carry your wallet everywhere.”

“You’re amazing,” Fitz breathed, and then reached forward to curve his hand beneath her jaw and bring their mouths together. These kisses were softer, quieter, and Jemma’s head spun, torn between arousal and the affection she felt for her best friend, so fierce that sometimes it frightened her.

 

\------

 

_Six months after Fitz’s death_

 

The workday crawled by, and at the end of it, Jemma couldn’t escape the lab fast enough. Sometimes, it was still the only place where she found peace, when she was working on a problem or learning more about the Inhumans. Other times, though, it reeked of Fitz and the life they’d been building together since they’d been sixteen. Today was the latter.

With a hefty grunt, Jemma slammed her fist into the SHIELD-standard punching bag, her wrapped knuckles not even causing the thing to budge but the pain bringing her some small sense of satisfaction anyway.

In the months following the incident, when she’d begun to hear whispers about the long hours she’d been working to distract herself, she’d started going to the gym after work instead. Running on the treadmill hadn’t helped, and so she’d explored the equipment she’d never bothered with before. Her second visit, May had appeared quietly by Jemma’s side and begun to instruct her, never asking whether she wanted the training or not. Jemma hadn’t protested. Every day, she went to the gym to teach herself how to fight, and every day, without any prearrangement, May showed up to do the teaching. The older woman never asked how she was doing or questioned it when Jemma had to run out of the lessons before she burst into tears.

About half the time, she was able to exhaust herself so thoroughly in the gym that she could collapse into bed and fall asleep without torturing herself with thoughts of all that would not be. Of all the things she could have, should have done differently. Of the ways Fitz had saved her and she did not save him. The days she fell asleep quickly were the good days, the better days. They only ever lasted until she was asleep, though, for her dreams were always plagued by half-memories and regret. She spent less and less time sleeping, and more time working or training. Even long-steeped, black tea began to have little effect on her, such that she found herself drinking it right up until dinnertime. Her concealer began to run out faster than it should.

The gym became the only place that was hers, that only barely reminded her of Fitz instead of being all consuming, and the six-month anniversary of his death was no different. She laid punch after punch against the black canvass, brows furrowed as she concentrated on hitting without damaging her knuckles. Adrenaline built and built and built in her chest as she tried not to think about the one thing that had been hovering, ignored, at the back of her head all day. 

At midnight, she’d reach a new milestone of being without Fitz for the longest time since they’d met. This was the thought that clawed at the part of her that still couldn’t believe he was gone, that kept thinking none of the past six months could be real, that wasn’t ready to move on from the one person that she never wanted to live without.

Her punches flew harder, faster, as if she could beat away the ache in her chest.

 

\------

 

_Six months before Fitz’s death_

 

Jemma felt like she was being dragged unwillingly from sleep, which had been blissfully absent from dreams and yet felt thoroughly luxurious. Once her mind began to catch up with her body, she realized that the warmth that surrounded her was Fitz curled partially over her back. In their sleep, they’d both shifted around so they were facedown, their sides pressed against each other to avoid either one falling off the narrow “full-sized” bed standard to the Playground’s individual bunks. One of his arms was wrapped around her bare waist, and a smile ticked up her lips before she’d even opened her eyes.

Memories from the night before darted through her still-waking mind; the sight of his jaw straining as he came apart inside her with a rough shout, the feel of his mouth as he licked and stroked her into oblivion, the whispered words of awe and adoration as he moved above, within, around her. That, of course, brought with it the memory of why she’d asked if she could follow him to his room, why she’d needed so desperately to surround herself with Fitz to impress upon herself that he was fine. Fitz had survived another brush with death, but Lincoln, their friend, had not. Her face twisted at the thought and she half-turned to press her face into the cotton pillowcase.

“Morning,” came Fitz’s voice, and she felt him brush aside her hair to press a scratchy kiss to the back of her neck. She could only sniffle in response, and he stiffened against her, one hand coming up to cup her jaw and tilt her head back so he could meet her eyes. “Oh, Jemma....” 

“It’s not that,” she said quickly, giving him an admittedly tremulous smile. He’d assume why she was tearful, but that wasn’t quite right. “I mean, it _is_ , but... I feel....” 

“Bad for Daisy,” he finished for her, and she wrinkled her nose as he nodded. “I know, it’s awful –”

“That’s not it. Well – ugh, it is, but....” Her voice lowered, and she paused, allowing herself a few seconds to enjoy the way he was rubbing his hand soothingly over her bare shoulder blades. “Guilty.”

“Jemma –!”

“Because I’m happy,” she clarified, flicking her eyes up to meet his at last. “I woke up just now and I’ve never slept better, but my friend just _died_ , Fitz, our friend... and Daisy....” She wormed her left hand up to stroke her fingers gently over his stubbled cheek. “But I woke up with you and I’ve never been happier. And I’m not supposed to be happy right now.” 

For a few seconds, Fitz didn’t respond, mulling over her words as he continued to smooth his hand over her skin. “If it helps,” he said slowly, “I’m happy, too. Sad as hell, but... _so_ happy. S’pose I know what you mean.” 

Before she could help herself, a wide, breathless smile spread across her face, and she scooted forward to nuzzle at his nose. “That makes me feel better, then.” A slight sigh slipped out of her lips. “I wish we could help Daisy. I just don’t think she’d take my advice, or... words of comfort, if you could call it that, right now.”

Fitz shrugged sadly. “Dunno what advice we could have, anyway. It’s a bloody awful tragedy.” 

Jemma watched him for a few moments, waiting for his eyes to yet again meet hers. “I know. I lived through it myself on an alien planet. And, well, for a few moments on Nick Fury’s plane, but that wasn’t... quite the same.” Understanding lit his features, eyes darkening in that depthless way he’d developed after the pod that meant she wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking, and she pursed her lips. “But I got you back in the end, against all odds, and with Lincoln....”

“No chance of that,” he murmured, and she nodded.

“So I don’t think my commiserating would be appreciated.”

“One day,” he said, pulling her in to drop a kiss on her nose. “For now, we’ll just be there for her.” 

They lay nose-to-nose on their pillows for a few, long moments, and Jemma felt her cheeks heat up at the expression on his face. Familiar to her though it may be now, the adoration that shone so plainly from him almost made her want to shy away. Instead, an awkward giggle sounded from her throat, and she darted forward to tuck her head beneath his neck. 

“Oh, can’t we stay here for a bit longer? I’m not ready to face everything just yet. Let’s go back to where we were before I got all....” She wiggled her shoulders, and he chuckled.

“I can think of a few things we could do as a distraction,” he offered, voice trailing off as she rolled her eyes. 

A little thrill zipped through her as she felt his hand slide teasingly down the dip of her spine. Her breathing quickened of its own accord, her eyes fluttering shut as he palmed her arse and leaned in for a sensual, closed-mouth kiss, and she thought that this would be a very good distraction indeed.

 

\------

 

_Six months after Fitz’s death_

 

Emerging from the locker room bathroom after finishing her workout, Jemma was in the midst of toweling her hair dry when she nearly ran into Mack.

“Whoa there,” he said, reaching out to steady her shoulders with both hands.

“I’m sorry,” she spoke over him, giving him a false smile. “I wasn’t –”

“Actually, I’ve been looking for you.” His face morphed into that expression she knew so well now, the one of well-meaning pity that she so detested. “How’re you doin’ today?”

Of course Mack would be the one to remember the date. He’d been there when the incident had happened, and Jemma knew that he blamed himself for leaving Fitz alone in the control room. There wasn’t anything he could have done, she’d assured him once, during a tearful confession in the middle of the common room very late at night. No one had known what Eli’s machine would do, and no one could have predicted that Coulson and Robbie would survive while Fitz did not.

Her words to Mack that night, however, had been a lie.

Of course she blamed him. Blaming the cosmos was pointless, even though Fitz had seen fit to do so himself when he was alive. But Mack should have known better, should have taken Fitz with him, should have run faster or turned left or changed _something_.

Sometimes Jemma wished that Mack had been the one to go instead. She couldn’t look at Coulson these days, either, for the same reason. The logical part of her knew all of this was ludicrous and false and _horrible_ and yet she felt it anyway.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m off to bed, actually –” 

“I was gonna see if you wanted to watch something,” Mack continued, and she could feel him watching her closely even as she pretended to be looking down the hall. “Not feeling that tired myself, and –” 

“I’ve just been to the gym –”

“Yeah, May said you were there.” She glanced up at him then, and he grimaced, as if he’d been caught at something. “I thought it might be better if you weren’t....”

 _Alone_? Her mouth twisted into an empty smile, and she slung the towel over one arm. “I’m going to bed, Mack. But thank you. Another time, perhaps.” Darting around his gargantuan form, Jemma sped off down the hall, not turning around to see the sadness he surely wore as he watched her go.

 

\------

 

_Five months before Fitz’s death_

 

Jemma lay spread-eagled and completely nude on her bed, panting heavily as she tried to recover some semblance of thought in the aftermath of two earth-shaking orgasms. Her whole body still trembled, and she knew she would be sore the next day but, good lord, it was for a far better reason than exercising had ever given her. Fitz, who had been in the process of ridding himself of the condom and cleaning up, clambered back up the narrow bed to lean over her, a smug grin flitting across his face before he ducked down for a heated kiss.

“You’re so bleedin’ gorgeous,” he murmured against her mouth, arranging himself so his knees bracketed her hips and his elbows were supporting most of his weight. “ _Christ_.”

“Fitz,” she moaned quietly, still too stunned to have much else to say. She brought one hand up to curl her fingers weakly around his bicep. “God, that was....”

“Best one yet, I think,” he finished for her, and she hummed in agreement, eagerly losing herself again as he captured her lips and strung out the aftermath with his kisses.

After a long while, Jemma pulled back and brushed their noses together, letting out a heady, satisfied sigh. “Do you ever feel like all we do now when we’re alone is have sex?” 

Fitz dropped back onto the mattress, propping his head up on one hand and regarding her thoughtfully. “Well, it’s sorta the only thing we can’t do around the others,” he said drily, and a laugh burst out of her. “But I’m willing to negotiate that if you are.”

“Ugh, _Fitz_ ,” she giggled, swatting lightly at his chest. He grabbed her hand and tugged it up to feather his lips over her knuckles. “We’re giving our beds quite a workout, aren’t we?”

“Think mine’s about ready to bust a spring,” he confessed, and she laughed again. “It was already a bit off after the ceiling broke onto it, y’know, and you’re very enthusiastic.”

Jemma raised a wry eyebrow at his teasing. “I don’t hear you complaining.”

“Extra points for enthusiasm,” he clarified, and she let out an indignant noise.

“You are _not_ scoring me at... at sex!” She warred briefly with the part of herself that wanted to know what her score would be, but logic won out and she didn’t ask.

“What about scoring us both?”

“Better,” she conceded. “We’d get top marks.”

“Always did.” They both laughed at that, and he leaned in to slide their lips together, the solid press of him against her and the dart of his tongue making her want to purr in contentment. (She almost made a face at herself at that thought; honestly, what grown woman _purred_?)

When he broke away again, she let out a small sigh, lips ticking up at the corners as their eyes met. “It might be nice to have a chance on a bigger bed for once, for that matter. I don’t think the one in Bucharest was much bigger than ours are here.” A mischievous grin teased at her mouth. “If you think I’m enthusiastic on a small bed, you should see what I can do when I have space.” 

Fitz’s eyes nearly crossed, and she snorted out a low laugh, dropping her gaze to where she began tracing the edges of the musculature of his chest. “Actually...” he murmured, and the hesitance in his tone caught her attention enough to bring her eyes back up to his. Considering the confidence with which he’d been teasing her only seconds before, the shyness as he refused to meet her gaze was a sharp difference. “I heard Piper talking in the hangar yesterday, ‘bout how Bobbi and Hunter’s room’s still open, so... I mean, if you wanted more space, we could... but, y’know, it’s only been a couple months for us, so we don’t have to, but that room’s got a king-sized bed.”

Somewhere in his rambling the question had almost gotten lost, but Jemma’s face brightened into a smile as she realized what he was trying to say. “Leo Fitz,” she murmured, using one hand to lift his chin, “are you asking me to move in with you?”

Terror flashed briefly across his face, and he swallowed. “Only, ah, if you wanna.”

“I’d love to,” she breathed, a feeling of effervescent joy consuming her so completely that she had to force herself not to bounce on the bed in excitement.

One of his rare grins spread across his face, and all of a sudden he pushed her back against the mattress and kissed her so enthusiastically and deeply that, for a while, Jemma wasn’t sure where she ended and Fitz began. As she hooked one leg around his, she thought that this was exactly how things should be.

 

\------

 

_Six months after Fitz’s death_

 

Without making any further stops, Jemma escaped through the Playground and made her way to her room. Twisting the lock until it gave a solid click behind her, she turned to look at the space that had once been theirs. In the months since the incident, she had refused to move any of Fitz’s things, only deigning to clean up his perennial mess and tuck away some of the tools that had taken up unnecessary space.

A violent hatred of the room washed over her, and she grabbed onto the door handle just so she had something to hold onto. In the weeks leading up to the six-month anniversary of his death, she’d thought that she’d mark it by making herself his favorite sandwich for dinner, maybe tell one of his pictures what she’d been doing in the lab, update him on the status of the mystery of Robbie Reyes’ powers. It would be healthy, she’d told herself, to recognize the anniversary, grieve, and then move on as normal people did.

Now that the day had come and the hour of her privacy was here, she found she didn’t want to do any of that. An odd, buzzing sense of rage had been bubbling up in her chest for hours, and her breath came short. She didn’t want to make peace with the anniversary because she didn’t want it to happen, because it was unfair, because they had survived so much to save each other and yet he’d died anyway. A part of her had wanted to make the others proud, to make Fitz proud, to show them that she was capable of living through another unimaginable tragedy and holding her head up high.

But Fitz would know better than anyone else that there was no gracefulness in grief; it was ugliness in its true, most undiluted form, and she could feel herself being swallowed by it from the inside out. Tears twisted out of her eyes, breath heaved jaggedly from her lungs, and she didn’t even know she was moving until suddenly she was throwing open the doors of their closet and ripping out Fitz’s clothes. She didn’t want to wake up surrounded by all these reminders again, she didn’t want to go about her day and see his face in every atom of every cell that she inspected, she didn’t want to be so blindingly angry anymore. Because she was, she was furious, and as she threw the jumpers and shirts viciously onto the floor she sobbed until she couldn’t breathe.

A large plastic storage bag in the back of the closet caught her eye and she paused, letting a blue, polka-dotted shirt slip between her fingers. All of the rage disappeared from her in an instant, and she reached gingerly for the bag. Inside it was one of Fitz’s blazers; he’d worn it a handful of times and hadn’t yet gotten around to taking it to the drycleaners. When she’d discovered it in the weeks after the incident, she’d taken care to preserve it, not daring to risk letting the last of him fade from her memory any more than he already inevitably would. 

Taking the blazer carefully from the bag, she sunk onto the floor in the pile of scattered clothes and folded its arms carefully in so she wouldn’t wrinkle it. Hands shaking, Jemma pressed the cloth to her face, breathing in one of the last things in the world that still smelled like the love of her life. In her mind’s eye, she could see him shrugging it on in the morning, giving her a half-smile and a wave before striding off to meet Coulson or Mack to do that day’s duty in saving the world. Her fingers tightened in the material as another wave of crying shook her shoulders, and she hastily shoved the blazer back in the bag so as not to ruin it with her tears.

As she curled over herself, reaching forward to draw up a handful of the clothes that she’d thrown to the floor, she told herself that there had to be something else. Jemma had personally analyzed the ashes they’d found in the facility for his DNA, had checked and triple-checked and then checked again and again until there was almost no sample left to make sure that Fitz had been the one who had died. This couldn’t be it for them, it couldn’t – they’d only had six months together to be happy after years of struggling for it. Fitz couldn’t just be _dead_ and that was it. Or if it was – and, heartsick though she may be, she knew this to be true – then there had to be some way for her to talk to him one last time. Had to be some way for her to tell him that she didn’t mean it, that she forgave him without question, and that she loved him more than her own life or saving those of others.

The phone in her pocket let out an anemic little bleep, and she let out a high, manic laugh-sob into the knees of her trousers. As of now, she had never lived longer without Fitz than she had at that second – and the time would only keep getting longer for the rest of her life. 

Something niggled in the back of her mind, and she reached around to tug out her phone, swiping away tears so she could stare at the flat, glass screen. Perhaps there was a way for Jemma to talk to Fitz one last time.

 

\------

 

_Six months and one day after Fitz’s death_

 

Jemma rapped her knuckles swiftly against Radcliffe’s door, and she only had to wait a few seconds before the man himself swung it open. 

“Simmons,” he said, attempting for warmth but seeming more frightened than one ought when greeting a friend. Of course, she’d made it very clear at Fitz’s funeral that she no longer considered them to be friends. “It’s good to see you.”

“That I very much doubt,” she snipped. Squinting up at the high morning light, she adjusted the bag on her shoulder as she remembered briefly when the sun had once brought her such joy. The concept itself now felt horribly foreign.

Radcliffe stared mutely back at her for a few seconds, one hand fidgeting with the doorknob. “How, ah, can I help you?”

“You owe me,” Jemma said, pushing past him. With a quiet swallow, Radcliffe closed the door and followed her into the house.


	2. Chapter 2

_Six months and one day after Fitz’s death_

 

“I dunno if this is a good idea, Jemma,” Radcliffe said slowly, scrubbing one hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. They strode through the living room toward his lab, the garden terrace’s green ivy glaring through the windows in the sunlight. Although the government-imposed curfew over the mid-Atlantic region wouldn’t start for a few hours yet, the weather meant that they might be more lenient should she return to the base a bit late. Not that Jemma wanted to be here any longer than was absolutely necessary. 

“Simmons,” she corrected him, taking out and arranging a laptop, tablet, and mobile on a steel table. “And I don’t care what you think.” 

“Well, if _I’m_ gonna be doing the programming....” He wilted under her unruffled gaze. “You should... probably care... a little?” 

“You already have the most advanced artificial neural networks in the world operating in your android,” she said, the last word coming out with more bite than she’d consciously intended. “Adapting it to run a... a chat program shouldn’t be that difficult.”

“No, no it wouldn’t.” Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his forehead. “I just don’t understand _why_. It seems....” His mouth worked silently for a few moments. “Counterproductive.”

“To what, exactly?”

“To moving on,” he answered after another brief pause, voice quieter than he ever spoke.

Jemma’s face twisted and she turned quickly away, pretending to straighten the devices she’d carefully collected from Fitz’s things. Once she had gathered herself enough that she was sure she wouldn’t break down, she met his gaze again. “I have some unfinished business to take care of, that’s all.” 

Giving his head a brief shake, Radcliffe sighed. “AIDA, could you come in here –” 

“No,” Jemma interrupted, expression slackening in panic, “I don’t....” But she was too late. The android glided into the room, a tablet clasped in its hands and a warm smile already on its face. 

“Hello, Jemma,” AIDA said, “it’s so good to see you.”

A wash of potent anger and regret nearly consumed her, and Jemma had to take a small step back, looking down and her breath speeding up as she tried to figure out what to say in response. This was why she had unceremoniously cut off all ties with Radcliffe once the funeral was over; she couldn’t see the face of that android without thinking of Fitz.

Fitz, who had taken such care in designing its conversational responses and fine-tuning its dynamic reaction force. Fitz, who had tried to help Jemma keep her job by not telling her of its existence. Fitz, who had worked on this project in secret for weeks while he lay next to her at night, next to and on top of and beneath her while hiding something so scientifically meaningful. Who had died without her forgiving him for keeping that secret.

The android had become the very embodiment of Jemma’s regrets, and she couldn’t look at the thing without seeing Fitz in its every movement, knowing that it was the last thing he had ever made. Even if the android had nothing to do with his death, it had everything to do with how she felt in the never-ending aftermath.

“You should have everything you need to start,” Jemma said hoarsely, directing this at Radcliffe without looking at either of them. “They’re all unlocked, I know his passcodes. I’d imagine that there would be more stored on other peoples’ devices, too, so I’ll let you know when I have more data to contribute. Mine is on that drive.”

Her vision began to blur of its own accord, and she blinked the tears furiously away. The worst part of recovering (a recovery that she didn’t want, the moving on that she knew would never happen) was when these mood swings would capture her in their clingy, unpredictable grasp. Jemma hated feeling out of control, hated not being able to put her best face forward to the rest of the world, and now at any moment she was liable to break down at any random stimuli that reminded her of Fitz.

“I must get going,” she choked out, throat tightening as she barely managed to withhold any emotion other than a distinct sense of hurriedness, and reached for her purse. “Let me know when you have something usable.” 

With that, Jemma practically sprinted out the door, slamming it behind her and escaping into the capital city’s sunlight.

 

\------

 

_Four months before Fitz’s death_

 

It had been a long day, and both Jemma and Fitz were tiredly getting ready for bed, circling around each other as they fetched one thing or another. As she lifted her blouse over her head, she caught a glimpse of him staring at her breasts.

“ _Men_ ,” she said pointedly, and, once he’d finished pulling his own white tee on over his head, he flicked his eyes up to hers. 

“What? Oh, no, I wasn’t....” His ears turned pink, and she reached around to undo her bra, arching an eyebrow as she did so. “I mean, y’know I... like your boobs –” 

“That’s the understatement of the century.” She propped her hands on her waist, well aware that she was now just standing in their bedroom topless while he was already dressed for the night. “How long did it take you to remember how to speak after you saw them for the first time?”

“We didn’t talk much that night,” he shot back, pointedly walking around her to dump his clothes in the laundry bin. The sight made her smile; he’d been very resistant to cleaning up his own floor, but once they’d moved into the same room he’d gotten significantly better about keeping their joint space up to her standards.

“I’ll concede that point.” Jemma reached down to undo her trousers fastener, smiling as he turned back around.

“And I wasn’t looking at them anyway – well, _now_ I am, but....” He trailed off as she laughed, and rolled his eyes. “I was just thinking _that_ looks nice on you.” Stepping into her space as she finished tugging off her trousers, he tapped his finger against the new sea star pendant that hung around her neck.

“It rather does,” she agreed, dipping her eyes down to glance at where it hung over her breastbone and then back up to meet his. “It’s a lovely present, Fitz, even if you shouldn’t –”

He let out a little noise of dissent and rested his hands on her bare waist. “It’s done, and anyway, you did all the work finding it. I just took the initiative.” 

“An appreciated initiative, if unnecessary.” She pressed a brief kiss to his lips and then moved back so she could slip on her pajamas.

“I’m just sorry we had to cancel the Seychelles again,” he said, dropping onto the edge of the bed. “But with the new director search....”

“I know,” she sighed, buttoning up her shirt. “It just always seems like bad timing, doesn’t it?”

“We’ll get there.” His expression was both earnest and determined as she looked up, now fully dressed. “I promise we will.”

“I know.” Once she was seated next to him on the mattress, she reached over to bring him close enough for a slower, softer kiss, brushing their lips together and then nuzzling at his nose. “Things here are just....” Jemma trailed off, lowering her gaze as her mind spun into what had been gnawing at her all day.

“What? C’mon, you can tell me.” He reached over to thread their fingers together, and she gave her head a small shake.

“I just don’t like that they didn’t even ask for our opinions about finding a new director, or....”

“That’s not _really_ how the agency works.” Fitz gave her a wry smile, sweeping hair away from her neck and resting his hand on her shoulder.

“I know.” Sighing, she resisted the urge to lay her head on his shoulder, instead tightening her grip on his hand. “I suppose that was possibly the only good that ever came out of Hydra’s resurgence –” He interrupted her with a disbelieving, horrified little noise, and she shushed him. “For a while, SHIELD was almost a democracy. It was nice, getting to have a say in how things were run.” A sad smile ticked up her lips. “That’s long over now, I suppose.” 

His fingers tickled the back of her neck, sending goosebumps shivering down her spine. “I thought you always liked following the rules,” he teased, scooting a mite closer as his eyes flitted across her face.

She gave him a droll look. “Well, I do. But I also....” Her nose wrinkled as she tried to verbalize the nagging feeling at the back of her head. “I just feel that I’d be better at implementing them, perhaps. The Science Division has become so scattered, you know.”

Fitz hummed, leaning down to brush their noses briefly together. Even though he’d started this conversation, she was fairly certain his brain was already moving down the path to a different topic entirely. “Well,” he said slowly, eyes a fiery lapis in the dim Playground bedroom, “if you ever have any rules you’d like to implement here, lemme know. _Doctor_ Simmons.”

A mischievous smile worked across her face. With a swift movement, she climbed up to straddle his hips, his head tilting back instinctively to keep eye contact with her. 

“That’s Agent Simmons to you,” she breathed before leaning down to catch his mouth in a searing kiss. His hands grabbed onto her bum, fingers squeezing instinctively into her flesh, and her lips stuttered against him at the rush of heat this caused.

When she pulled back to breathe, Fitz didn’t open his eyes, instead blindly mouthing at her jaw and neck. “I thought,” he murmured, his stubble scraping against her skin, “tonight was our off night...?”

With an incredulous scoff, she leaned back to look at him. “Seriously?”

His brain was clearly only working at partial capacity, because it took him far too long to look at her again let alone seemingly understand her pique. Swiftly, she reached down between them to feel for an erection and then wrap her hand firmly around his cock over his pajama trousers. _Ahhh_ , she thought to herself, grinning as he bit off a swear at her touch, _so_ that _’s why your brain isn’t working at full capacity_. Seeing how quickly he could be distracted by arousal was one of Jemma’s favorite things about dating Fitz; after all, she’d spent over a decade thinking he was both focused and brilliant 24/7. Apparently, that was only partially true, and she loved teasing that out of him.

“What do you want, Fitz?” They kissed again, this time all heat and tongues and little shocked breaths. “Tell me.” 

“Inside you,” he breathed into a groan, a tendon in his neck tightening as she continued to stroke him through his pajamas. “You on top. Fuck, _please_....” 

“Please...?” She leaned back, raising one eyebrow as his gaze followed her. 

“Agent Simmons,” he answered, eyes dropping shut again as she slipped her hand inside his trousers to tease him a little more.

“Only if you’re a good boy.” Her voice was as low as she ever dared get, and he let out a stuttered moan at the firmer motions of her hand. 

Wanting to get their current obstacles out of the way, she scrambled off of him and stripped off her pajama top. As she draped it over the dresser, a low laugh escaped her throat, and Fitz gave her an incredulous look over where he’d just tugged off his own shirt.

“I shouldn’t have bothered getting dressed after all,” she joked, shoving off her trousers and underwear at once to make a statement. 

Fitz chuckled, pulling her back in so he could mouth at a dark mole beneath her left breast. “I’m just a happy spectator, on or off,” he returned, causing her to giggle until he wrapped his lips around one nipple.

A sigh feathered from her mouth and she let her head tilt back. Jemma decided she could worry about SHIELD any other time of the day; her nighttimes belonged to Fitz. Even if they couldn’t escape to the Seychelles quite yet, the important thing was that they were together – and, two hundred species of fish aside, that would be the point of the vacation anyway.

 

\------

 

_Six months and a week after Fitz’s death_

 

While Radcliffe worked on extracting Fitz’s words from all of his devices and setting up the neural network, Jemma went around to all the people at SHIELD who might have messages (in either text or email form) that he may have deleted. The more data they had, the more accurate the program’s responses would be. 

After some deliberation, she decided to tell the others that she was creating a memorial to Fitz. It was accurate enough; none of them needed to know her own reasons for wanting to talk to him, even it was nothing more than a false memory.

Every person she approached willingly surrendered their devices. Mack returned with a hard drive of not only their correspondence, but also every project on which the two of them had ever collaborated. Coulson handed over both his phone and computer, confessing that he didn’t know how to send her what she needed but that she could take anything. The look he gave her as she extracted the data, however, made her want to snap at him that he wasn’t her father, childish and unnecessary a response though it would be.

Less than a day after she’d tentatively approached Elena, following one of her regular debriefs, at the slim chance the two of them had ever spoken electronically, a compressed file appeared on the desktop of Jemma’s work computer labeled “ _From Daisy_.” The file itself contained thousands upon thousands of files, automated transcripts of the video logs kept on the communications room of the Bus. Another folder contained all the messages Daisy and Fitz had ever sent each other. From the Bus when they were first becoming friends, to when she’d been locked away in Fury’s cabin, to when he’d sent her unanswered email after email following her disappearance, begging her to come home. Jemma left work early that day.

The only person who refused to provide Fitz’s messages was May.

“No,” she said once Jemma had finished her well-rehearsed little speech. They stood face to face by their respective lockers, and May clicked hers shut.

Jemma didn’t know how to respond; no one had refused her before, and she couldn’t think of any reason why someone would. Wasn’t it the kind thing to do to indulge the grieving widow – widow though she may not technically be?

“Perhaps I didn’t explain it properly,” Jemma tried again, squeezing the plastic of her external hard drive in her hands as she hurried after May into the hallway. “I won’t be reading them, the flexible machine-learning system will simply use his words to create a more accurate –” 

“I understand,” May interrupted her, continuing on down the hall. “No.”

“But why?” She darted around in front of the other woman, her breath coming short and her pulse speeding up for no logical reason. “Why not?” 

May didn’t answer for a few seconds, seemingly sizing her up first. “It’s not healthy.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Jemma snapped, “I know it’s not him, I’m not an idiot.” 

“I know, and that’s exactly why I’m worried about you doing this.” Pursing her lips, she waited until a gaggle of junior agents passed them by before continuing. “Fitz wouldn’t want his words to be used to create some... parrot of himself –”

“Well, he was creating a secret android in a mad scientist’s lab,” Jemma retorted, not letting May finish, “maybe none of us actually knew _what_ he wanted.” 

Something like understanding flashed across the other woman’s face and her eyes hardened. “He wouldn’t want his words to be used to create a parrot of himself that you spend the rest of your life locked away with.”

Jemma stared back at her in silence, lips parted but without knowing how to respond, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she managed at last, and turned to escape in the other direction.

May grabbed her wrist, decidedly halting her progress. “Don’t do this, Jemma.” The use of her first name startled her; May was one of the few of her friends who had never used it before, even when offering words of comfort at the funeral. “I know it’s too soon now, and I know you’re not ready, but one day you’re going to have to –” 

“If you tell me that I have to move on,” Jemma choked out, half-heartedly trying to tug her wrist out of May’s grasp, “I swear to God –”

“No, moving on is a myth.” Jemma raised her eyes to meet May’s, surprise written across her features. “I know from experience. But one day you’ll have to let Fitz go, and if you do this, you won’t. Do you really think you could shut down something that has his voice?”

Her jaw went slack at the thought, and she swallowed. “I....”

“Don’t feed what’s left of him into some program,” May said quietly. “Let him go.” 

At that, Jemma yanked her arm from the specialist’s grip. “ _No_.” 

Using the adrenaline of anger to propel her down the hall and away from May, Jemma pushed down the quiet voice at the back of her head that wondered if the other agent might be right.

 

\------

 

_Three months before Fitz’s death_

 

The base was unnaturally quiet for this early evening hour, and Jemma wrinkled her nose at the loud clip of her footsteps through the halls. Her boots echoed on the concrete, reminiscent of the ticking of a clock. Most of SHIELD was out hunting down the now-infamous “Quake,” formerly known as both Skye and Daisy and also, apparently, formerly their friend. 

With a few quick twists and turns through the Playground’s familiar halls, she found her way to the common room, whose comfortably worn furniture was empty save for the lone figure stretched out on the biggest couch.

“Hey,” Jemma whispered, and Fitz turned his head from where it had been leaning against the back cushions.

“Hey you,” he said, face lighting up as soon as he saw her. “Wasn’t sure if you saw my text, or –”

“I was almost done,” she interrupted, and curled herself in against his side, tucking her legs beneath herself. “So I just finished up and came to find you instead.” Tipping her head to the dark television, she raised an eyebrow. “Scintillating stuff, this.” 

“Couldn’t find the remote.” He leaned more comfortably against the sofa cushions and wrapped his arms around her. Whenever he held her like this, she felt like everything in the universe was exactly as it should be, and calm spread through her. “You’re more interesting than anything on TV anyway.” 

“Oh _really_ ,” she drawled with a wide smile. “Even more than the first Scottish Doctor?”

Fitz paused, brows furrowing as her argument tempted him. “Yup,” he said abruptly, flashing her a quick grin. “You still win.” Just as she was about to make an appreciative little noise, he continued: “Much nicer boobs than Capaldi.” 

Jemma collapsed against his shoulder in a gigglefit, halfheartedly swatting his chest in reproach. “ _Fitz_!”

“What? You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met _and_ you have magnificent boobs.” When she stretched up to meet his eyes, giving him an amused headshake, he shrugged. “I really don’t see what could beat that.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered on a low laugh, settling her head back against his shoulder. They lay in comfortable silence for a few moments, and she tangled their left and right hands together before bringing them up so she could kiss his. “What’s wrong, Fitz?” 

From where her head rested, she could just barely see his mouth twist. “Worried about Daisy.” 

Bizarrely, their friend’s disappearance had just made Jemma love Fitz more. When Daisy hadn’t answered any of their text messages for days on end, he nearly went spare trying to find her, getting close enough that eventually Daisy herself had needed to tell him to stop. Jemma had been there the day that Fitz received the curt, blinking message on his work computer: “ _I’m alive, Fitz. Leave me alone._ ” His face had crumpled before he’d swept gadgets and tools angrily off the table.

“And I miss her,” he added quietly. Not having any words of comfort to offer him, Jemma sighed and leaned up to press two affectionate kisses to his scratchy cheek. “Just wanted to see you.” His mumbled words made something in her chest clench, and she rearranged their entwined hands so that she was hugging his arm against herself. 

“Tell me how I can help.” She wished she could find Daisy almost more for his sake than for hers; the two of them shared a bond that Jemma couldn’t quite access, and she adored them both all the more for it.

“Just stay with me for a while? Don’t feel like going back to the room yet, and....”

“Of course,” she murmured, nuzzling in to press another kiss to his cheek. “I’ll stay with you as long as you’d like, of course I will.”

“How was your day?”

She could tell that he was changing the subject, and wondered briefly what had set him off on the dark path to worrying about their wayward friend. Eventually, when he wasn’t in such a pensive, morose mood, she’d ask him what had happened. Until then, she would do her best to take his mind away from his worries.

“Quite good, actually,” she replied, keeping her voice low so that it didn’t echo through the large room. “Radcliffe is consulting again, and he really is quite brilliant –”

“When he’s not finding new body parts to augment,” Fitz said drily, and she tsked.

“You know he’s signed that waiver –”

“I know, I know.” He let out a small snort. “I still cannot believe you stuck a needle in his eye –”

“I knew it wasn’t his _real_ eye,” she protested, taking heart from his quick return to teasing. “And it was the only weapon I had to hand! In any case, he’s just consulting on my adaptive polytechnic weave redesign, nothing to do with transhumanism. He’s actually quite good in a lab, when he’s not distracted.” 

“Yeah,” Fitz agreed, “yeah he’s not bad. Did I tell you he invited us over this weekend to watch football? Aberdeen’s –”

“Oh, yes, he mentioned it today! That should be nice.”

As the two of them kept talking, she could feel the tension leech out of Fitz’s shoulders and arms, and she considered the evening a success. Even if she didn’t know what had set him off, Jemma was thrilled to be able to calm his worries with something as simple as being beside him – especially because that was precisely her favorite place to be.

 

\------

 

_Six months and two weeks after Fitz’s death_

 

For days, Jemma painstakingly extracted all of the words Fitz had ever written from every device and account she collected around the base. She spent late nights in her lab doing so, checking over the files to make sure everything was clean and uncorrupted before sending them off to Radcliffe. He didn’t try to change her mind again, seemingly treating this like a commission of sorts, and for that she was at least superficially grateful. 

With all of the available text Fitz had ever written fed into the adaptive neural network, it only took Radcliffe another few days to code the chat program, and then a few days after that to set it up in a more user-friendly format on the computer Jemma had provided. Using her clout as the Director’s science advisor, she arranged to commandeer a private, closet-sized office just off the lab, and had Radcliffe deliver the computer to her there. She refused to risk seeing the android again.

As she set up the room, she wondered if it had been a storage closet many months ago, before things at the Playground had shifted to accommodate being at war. Did she remember Fitz pulling her in here once...? Letting out a sharp _tsk_ , she shook her head and returned to unpacking the computer. That train of thought would be of no use.

After Radcliffe gave her a quick demo of the program – which defaulted to a bot sans personality – he straightened from the computer. The chat functionality was simple enough to use, even though he looked more ill at ease than she’d ever seen him.

“To access the Fitz version, you just type at-Fitz. If you want it to go back to the ordinary bot, you type in at-bot. Alright?” 

“Sounds manageable,” she said with a wry twist to her mouth.

One of the more frustrating things about being bereaved was that people tended to treat her as if all of her brains and common sense had been buried along with the love of her life. _No_ , she wanted to tell them, _I may never be as happy as I was again, but I am still just as brilliant_. Common courtesy generally prevented her from vocalizing those thoughts, however.

“Right,” Radcliffe said, standing awkwardly next to the computer desk. “S’pose I’ll just –”

“I’ll let you know if I have any questions,” she interrupted, and he gave her a relieved nod.

“Yes, good, right then. I’ll be off.” He reached for the door handle, twisted it, paused, and then turned halfway around to look at her. “Simmons....” 

“Yes?”

His mouth worked silently for a few moments and then twisted to the side, the grey of his stubble shadowed by the open door. “Just... be careful.” 

With that, he pulled the door to, the handle snapping quietly back into place once it was closed.

“I’m always careful,” she muttered petulantly, and tried not to think about how that had been a very Fitz thing for Radcliffe to say.

When she turned to the computer, the chat program window empty and the cursor blinking at the ready, she let out a slow breath. A part of her wanted to circle it, a bizarre surge of some long-dormant predatory instinct, of something that still couldn’t intellectually wrap her head around what was contained on the machine’s hard drive. 

_Twenty-nine years_ , Jemma thought to herself, staring down at the waiting computer. Everything Fitz had ever done in his twenty-nine years of life had just been boiled down to the data collected on this one piece of machinery. Considering his chosen profession, it was either appropriate or the cruelest of all ironies. 

After a few more seconds, she let out a quick huff and dropped into the chair. Her fingers typed out the command before she could second-guess herself, and then hovered over the enter key briefly before striking it.

_> @Fitz_  
_> This is Simmons.  
_ _> Is this working?_

Three little dots hovered at the bottom of the screen, as if someone at their own computer somewhere were typing, and as the text popped up there came a small clicking noise – an artificial enter key.

_> >>What does it look like?_ 

She wrinkled her nose. He’d have used a contraction.

_> Fitz? Is that really you?_

Quickly, another reply came: 

_> >>Who else would it be?_ 

A strangled little laugh came from her throat; either the words were too familiar, or it sounded like him, or something between. Either way, she had the distinct feeling that that had been the right answer. 

For a few seconds, Jemma stared down at the keyboard. When she’d ordered the program’s creation, she’d told Radcliffe that she had unfinished business, and she’d promised herself that all she wanted was to right the wrong that had marred the last of their time together. Jemma needed Fitz to know that she forgave him, now and forever, for having kept the android a secret, and that it had never made her love him less. That, in some ways, she’d loved him more for the naïve, oh-so-earnest ways he’d tried to fix the problem between them. That she’d forgive him for far worse if she could only have him back. 

Now that she was here, however, faced with the waiting program that held all of his words but none of his heart, it felt... disingenuous for her to simply forgive the thing straight off, without any preamble. So she decided to wait a few days. The program was adaptive, after all, and the more she used it, the more accurate it would be.

_> How’ve you been?_

_> >>Starved. D-hall’s a bloody warzone._

A surprised sob bubbled out of Jemma’s throat, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. That had been a message he’d sent her a decade ago, back at the Academy. It felt like another lifetime entirely.

The little click sounded, and she blinked her teary eyes open to stare, surprised, at the text awaiting her.

_> >>What’re you up to?_

Jemma swallowed; for the bot to reply to her commands was one thing. For it to initiate questions on its own was something else altogether. 

_> At work. Loads of reports to finish._ 

She hesitated before sending what she really wanted to say, unsure what stage of their relationship the bot would pick up.

_> I’ve missed you._ 

The response appeared almost instantly.

_> >>Miss you, too. If we kick everyone out of lab, can it be just us again? Can’t move w/o running into a jr scientist._ 

Chuckling, Jemma typed out her response with something resembling a smile on her face.

_> I’d like that._

_> >>Consider it done._

A few wayward tears slipped down her cheeks, and she swiped them away.

_> I *miss* you._

_> >>Yeah, I know. Can’t stand SHIELD sometimes._

_> I don’t know what I’m going to do without you._

_> >>Keep working. Be there soon._

_> You won’t be._

_> >>Have I ever let you down before?_ 

“No,” she let out, voice trembling and tearful, and the word echoed dully in the small room.

With a sharp cry, Jemma pressed the palms of her hands so hard into her eyes that red bloomed behind her eyelids, the physical pain taking an edge off the hollowness that had washed unexpectedly over her. The bot was both just right and yet wrong enough that she couldn’t quite pretend it was truly him, her Fitz, the one person in the world that she knew better than herself. 

Another click drew her attention back to the screen, but it took her a few seconds to blink away the blurriness of her vision.

_> >>You didn’t answer the question. _

_> No._

_> >>Alright, tetchy._

_> Sorry._

_> >>Not a problem. See you later? _

_> I’ll always be with you, Fitz._

_> >>Good. Be bloody boring otherwise._

Her lungs felt like they couldn’t take in enough air, and with a few quick strokes she typed in “@bot,” abruptly too grief-stricken to keep talking to the digital ghost of her best friend in the whole world.

Folding her arms onto the faux-wood table, Jemma cried – for the treasured memories of the past, for the days that would not come, and, most of all, for the words that she wanted and yet could not bear to read. Fitz was speaking to her from the grave, but he could not hear her back.


	3. Chapter 3

_Six months and three weeks after Fitz’s death_

 

The Fitz bot was not without its flaws. For the next few days after its installation, Jemma spent as much time as she dared spare on trying to give the bot adequate exposure to human conversation. She moved her workstation computer and her most frequented equipment into the cramped side room, she rearranged the space so she could move from table to table while still able to see the screen, and she told her support staff that she was working on a special project and was only to be disturbed when truly necessary. 

In the first day or so, she realized that having to go type her prompts and answers to the bot was extremely tiresome. Often, she found herself speaking out loud, waiting for a response, and then letting out a groan of annoyance when she realized that she needed to stomp over to the computer and type the whole thing over again. With a bit of code adjustment – and a quick advisory call to Radcliffe – she enabled dictation for her own part of the chatting. 

After some hesitation, she declined to give the chat bot itself a voice. Radcliffe could make the voice realistic, she was sure of it, and that is precisely why she could not stomach the idea – if it was not Fitz’s own recorded voice, to which she listened every night before she went to sleep, she did not want to hear it. It would transform the bot project into something else entirely, and Jemma wasn’t sure that she wanted to cross that line. If she hadn’t already.

Instead, she requisitioned a pair of the new, tech-enabled goggles Fitz had finished making for the spec-ops agents and hooked it up to display the bot’s text at the bottom of the lenses. With that, Jemma was able to move about her new little office and temporary laboratory just as she had done for the majority of her scientific career, speaking out loud to Fitz and making discovery after discovery. It felt almost like home. The only difference, of course, was that his responses were limited to text on a screen.

“I have never been more exasperated,” she said emphatically, moving her hand through the air in a way that the bot clearly could not see, “in – my – life. Honestly, _how_ difficult is it to understand quantum theory?” 

_> >>Better than explaining it to spec-ops._

“Not by much.” Jemma was busy inspecting a new batch of fish oil pills that were reputed to provide people with temporary Inhuman abilities. In all likeliness it was a hoax, but as the world’s leading expert on Inhuman DNA and terragenesis, she had to check the chemical components of each pill individually and personally. “You should see some of the people Mace has brought in recently, it’s horrendous.”

_> >>Do they even have PhDs?_

“I doubt it. The Academy has been in such shambles since the rebuild –”

_> >>Hard to get anyone to apply._

“You’d have been an excellent teacher, you know,” she mused, a little smile working across her face as she reached for a new slide and peered through the microscope. “Even with your _occasionally_ short temper –”

 _> >>Why would _anyone _want to be a teacher?_

“You’re quite good at explaining things when you put your mind to it.”

 _> >>You’re better at explaining this stuff than me_.

“Well, thank you,” she replied cheekily, making a little faux-curtsey and marking a result on her chart.

_> >>I’d give anything to have you explain it to me._

Jemma frowned, putting away her current slide and reaching for a new one. “Explain what?” 

Sometimes the Fitz bot went off on odd tangents, its previous response seemingly connecting to other words or phrases in the neural network. Radcliffe insisted that it was just part of the algorithm that identified possible conversation topics from both involved parties, but it often felt like the bot wanted to keep talking. Even if she knew that was ridiculous.

 _> >>Why you left without saying goodbye. I was doing better, y’know. _ 

The glass slide she’d been holding slipped through her fingers to shatter at her feet, and she jumped back, startled as much by the sound as she was by the words that had just appeared on the goggles.

“Where did you get that?”

_> >>My head, where’d you think?_

“No,” she snapped, turning and striding towards the bot’s laptop. “At-bot, tell me where the second to last bot responses came from. Give me the source files.”

With a small bleep, the text on the goggles faded away, and the computer’s screen popped up with a file address. Pulling up a nearby stool to sit on, Jemma typed the commands that brought up a folder containing a long-since erased duplicate of a deleted back-up file buried somewhere in the depths of Fitz’s computer or spare hard drives.

 _“I think I’d stop caring if she’d just tell me. I mean, she just never told me anything, and it’s not like I’ve completely changed just because I love her, right? I’m – well, I’m not the same person, because it would take me ten minutes to say this out loud I bet, but I’m the same on the inside. I’m different_ now _, but not because of the way I feel about her._

_Love doesn’t mean anything anyway. It’s a social construct, right, so, it’ll go away. But it can’t go away if she’s just – gone._

_I mean, what if something’s happened to her? She could be dead, or – hurt, or something._

_It’s stupid to still love her, right? She thinks I’m useless. I’m not bloody useless, I’ll complete the camouflage for the Bus and I’ll show everyone that I’m not useless. It’d be easier if I could_ say _all of this instead of stammering until my face turns red, but, still._

_I don’t even care if she’s gone off and gotten married or anything, or if she took Trip up on a date, or – anything. I don’t care. I don’t. I just want her to be safe. And happy. I miss seeing her smile. She’s got the best smile, Jemma has, lights up even the darkest places. It’s like – I know everything’s gonna be okay when I see her smile._

_I miss her_.” 

“Oh,” she breathed out, tears spilling over, “ _Fitz_.”

It seemed to be something that he’d typed out, freeform, into a notes program on his computer and then attempted to delete. Clearly, it was from when she’d been undercover at Hydra, and he’d probably be mortified that she’d read it. After the funeral, she’d wondered if she should go through his computer, just to reminisce over their old projects or to see if there was anything that needed resolving. In the end, she’d decided against it; even with him gone, it had felt like a violation of his privacy.

The computer made its familiar little click that meant the bot had just typed a response, and when she looked up through the goggles she realized that it had heard her say “Fitz” as _@Fitz_.

_> >>Yeah? You called?_

Her breathing was erratic as she tried to subdue the panic and sadness that was washing over her the longer she stared at the almost-deleted file. Sniffling, she dropped her forehead into the palm of one hand, squeezing her eyes shut against the flood that threatened.

“‘It’s like everything’s gonna be okay when he sees me smile.’ _God_ , is that true?” The click came quickly, and she blinked her eyes open again, barely able to read the text through her blurry vision.

_> >>If the data says so, it must be true. _

Her other hand reached unconsciously up to clutch at her chest, closing over the sea star pendant, and she was abruptly grateful that the door to the office was already closed. 

“Did he really love me that much?” she whispered, not expecting an answer, not even wanting one, every fiber of her being aching for knowing that Fitz was forever out of her reach.

_> >>Yeah._

 

\------

 

_Two and a half months before Fitz’s death_

 

The cool sheets felt nice against Jemma’s bare skin, and she lay down on the bed. An odd, fleeting moment of embarrassment passed through her, warming her cheeks, as she let her legs spread out more comfortably out on the mattress, acutely aware that she was completely nude while Fitz was not. She rid herself of that thought, however, as Fitz settled his knees on either side of her thighs. His boxers briefly tickled her skin and her muscles twitched involuntarily. At that, he let out a low chuckle and stretched forward, hands causing the mattress to dip down on either side of her as he brushed a whisper against her ear. 

“Just tell me how you like it, hm?”

Jemma rolled her eyes; he might very well be enjoying this more than she was. But then he settled in to work his thumbs into a particularly tense knot at the base of her spine, and she cried out, tilting her head to muffle the sound in her forearm. 

“You okay?” Fitz stilled, resting his hands against the cooling skin of her back. 

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly, wincing slightly at the residual pain. “It’s just _really_ tense –” 

“I know,” he replied, sounding concerned and putting his hands back into action. “S’why I offered. You’re working too much –”

“The promotion’s almost mine, Fitz,” she said exasperatedly, twisting her head around to give him a pointed look. “I can’t stop now!” 

He sighed, gave his head a brief shake, and then leaned down to press a kiss to her temple. “I know you can’t.” 

“Just keep going, please?”

“As you wish.”

Raising himself back up, Fitz began to feel for and work out the tensest of her back muscles, massaging each one out more carefully than he had the first. Jemma sighed, virtually melting against the cotton-polyester sheets. 

“Oh _yes_ , Fitz,” she breathed, letting her eyes slip closed. “God, just like that!” 

He laughed again, sliding one thumb firmly up the center of her spine. “If you keep talking like that, we won’t be at this for very long.”

Jemma let out a small scoff that turned into a pleased gasp when he managed to find a particularly pernicious little knot in her lower lumbar. “And why’s that?” 

“You know why,” he mumbled, and she almost cooed at the endearing shyness in his voice. Her boyfriend had a tendency to veer unpredictably between being so cocky that it made her want to show him who really ran the show, and being so adorably gentle and careful that it made her chest ache with so much affection she felt like she could burst. Which version of Fitz she got in the bedroom depended on his mood, and Jemma was always thrilled to find out which variation would show up that day. 

She thought about reaching around to tease him more directly, but he continued to work his hands over the tight muscles of her back and the idea flitted away as soon as it came. At the moment, she was so relieved that he was actually managing to work out the tension that had been hobbling her movement all day – after a week’s worth of extra hours doing the new director’s bidding – that she thought she might actually climax just from the massage. Having a boyfriend who worked with his hands for a living had some very distinct benefits.

As her muscles began to finally relax, she felt boneless, small sounds of relief and pleasure eking out of her throat. 

“Oh _Fitz_ ,” she moaned when he managed to ease out the last of the tension in her shoulders. “I knew I loved you for a reason.”

His hands slowly stopped moving, and, after resting them spread out against her skin for a brief moment, he lifted up and used his hands to encourage her to turn over onto her back. Nearly drunk with relaxation, Jemma obediently shuffled around, enjoying the unselfconscious way he adjusted her nude body – just a few months ago, he would have been far shyer about doing so. Once she was on her back, a lazy smile on her face, she stretched her arms up above her head, reveling in the gentle pops of her spine that earlier would have been excruciating.

Fitz let her finish and then leaned down, supporting his weight on his elbows and kissing her deeply. “Say that again,” he murmured against her lips, the loose cotton of his shirt brushing against the sensitive skin of her breasts.

“For a reason?” Jemma grinned cheekily up at him, and he rolled his eyes.

“Y’know what I meant.”

“That I love you?” He nodded, and she cupped his chin in her hands, scratching the sides of her thumbs against his stubble. “I love you, Leo Fitz.”

The two of them had only exchanged the words for the first time a few weeks prior, and while to Jemma it felt as natural as breathing, Fitz was still getting used to it. Every time she said it, he had to be touching her shortly thereafter, and he still said it rarely in return. Not that she minded this, however – she knew that frequency of phrase did not necessarily equate to fervency. The depth of his affection for her shone from his eyes every time he took her in his arms and said those three little words back, or even if he didn’t.

Sure enough, when she said it now, his eyes lit up as if it was the first time all over again, and he surged down for a searing kiss. 

“Again,” he breathed in between kisses, and then reached back to pull off his white cotton tee.

“I love you,” she repeated, digging her fingers into the skin of his back and arching unsubtly up into him.

Mid-kiss, he broke away, scrambling over her to grab for his bedside drawer and then shove his underwear ungracefully down and off his legs. On the bed, Jemma slid her arms out along the sheets, a soft smile breaking across her face as she watched him. No matter how many times she said the words, she was always stunned by the sheer force of her feelings for Fitz. However many years it had taken her to parse them out, it seemed that they were not only here to stay, but were also stronger than she’d once believed she’d feel for anyone. He’d snuck up on her, writing himself across the very fabric of her being in a way that she didn’t believe would ever weather or wear. 

Once the condom was in place, he climbed back over her, and she reached up automatically to slide her hands along his sides, cataloguing the shifting of his muscles and the goosebumps on his skin. Their mouths met messily, adoringly, and when she pulled her legs up and spread them apart, he settled himself into the cradle of her hips. One hand wriggled down between them to stroke through her folds, his finger dipping just inside her and eliciting a pleased hum from her throat. She knew he was checking to make sure she was ready, but he needn’t have; having his hands all over her for the past forty-five minutes meant that she was nearly desperate to feel more direct friction. Sensing her mood, Fitz swiped his finger over her clit as he removed his hand and she stifled a whimper against his mouth. He didn’t move again, though, pulling back from her kiss and smiling as she tried to follow his lips forward.

“Again.” His eyes were so dark now that she could only catch the briefest flash of blue, and she slid one hand up his neck to card through his hair.

“I love you, Fitz –!” Jemma broke off on a gasp as he thrust hard into her, her head tilting back into the mattress as that first rush of pleasure washed through her whole body. Letting out a brief groan, he ground his hips in tight circles against her, stringing out the intimacy of that first push while also working out the angle that would let him best press against her clit.

The fit of him inside her was just right – “the Goldilocks ratio,” she’d joked to him once – and she was torn between wanting to feel this precise kind of closeness for as long as possible, and wanting to build that tantalizing heat. Before she could make a decision, Fitz pulled his hips back to make another smooth stroke inside her, and she made a shaky, embarrassingly pleased sound, hands scrabbling up to clutch at his back. He nuzzled down at her, once again having paused his movement.

“Again?” His eyes were a mix of arousal and adoration and a nearly childish kind of hope that sent Jemma’s heartbeat skittering away inside her chest.

“I love you,” she whispered, rocking her hips up to meet his next thrust, and his eyes nearly fluttered closed on a groan. “I love you,” she repeated, having figured out what he wanted, “I _love_ you.”

He let out a cross between a groan and a whimper, his eyes nearly closing but staying fixed on hers, their noses pressed tightly together. As he settled into a rhythm, snapping his hips forward in a way that made her head light with pleasure, she spread her legs further apart and angled her feet in to hook around the back of his knees, twining their bodies completely together. With every breath, she told him she loved him, and he watched her with a wonderment and adoration that nearly consumed her. One of his hands wormed its way beneath her back, pressing them even closer together, and with that he finally found the right angle to stimulate her clit with each of his thrusts. She let out a shocked cry, vision blurring out as she veered over the edge into a sudden, body-shaking orgasm, her thighs and arms clamping down around him. 

Fitz captured her lips for messy half-kisses as pleasure rolled through her, causing her passage to grow even slicker as she tightened around his cock. “Yeah, Jemma,” he groaned, letting out a small grunt as she rocked back up against him, not ready for the feeling to end. “Oh yeah, _yeah_ …!” 

“I love you,” she gasped, hugging him tightly and feeling their chests, slick with sweat, slide against each other. “ _God_ , so much, Fitz, more than –” He shifted his position slightly to allow him to buck his hips forward faster, and she cried out, another burst of feeling spreading through her veins as he managed to stroke against her G-spot. “ _Anything_.”

The bed began to squeak beneath them, the overused hinges only able to take so much exertion. Speeding up his thrusts, the flush of his cheeks and the wildness to his eyes suggested that Fitz was close to the edge himself. “Yeah?” 

“Yes,” she whimpered, trying to keep her eyes on his despite the tingles and foreshocks that meant she was desperately close to coming again. “Oh yes, oh yes, oh _yes_ –!”

They moved seamlessly together, both their bodies moving on instinct and their words growing more and more broken as they spiraled toward the end together. With one more adjustment to the rhythm of his thrusts, Jemma felt her orgasm break over her, the wash of feeling twice as intense and as long as the first one. In seconds Fitz followed after, bucking his hips forward hard as he came with a shout he muffled against her shoulder. She couldn’t breathe for the rightness of it, for the pleasure of feeling her best friend and the love of her life come apart inside her and around her and along with her. Her body was alight with hormones and affection and the feel and the smell of him, with Fitz’s eyes and hands and heart beating wildly against hers.

At long last, he relaxed into her trembling limbs, both of them silent and panting as they returned from their high. Often, he tried to roll away soon after coitus, not wanting to rest too much of his weight on her, but this time she kept her legs and arms wrapped tightly around him. 

“I love you,” she whispered again, carding one hand up through his hair and around to caress his jaw.

His left arm trembled slightly against her, as it often did after too much exertion, and she encouraged him to shift over and lie along her side. As much as she hadn’t quite been ready for their separation, she made sure to tangle their legs together again right away. The movement, however, was well worth the adoring look he turned on her when she began to gently massage his left palm, wrist, arm, and then elbow. They didn’t often talk about the way he’d tried to sacrifice for hers at the bottom of the ocean; instead, she tried to show him in little, unspoken ways how much she cared. Pride usually kept him from talking about the tremors, but she hoped small things like this helped without hindering. The affectionate responses she received in return typically told her as much.

After a few, silent minutes, where they both caught their breath and Jemma took pride in the lessening muscle-twitching, Fitz stretched forward to nuzzle at her nose, giving her an eskimo kiss.

“I love you, Jemma,” he murmured, expression sated and warm as he gazed at her. 

A breathless smile broke across her face, and she leaned in to ghost their lips together. Even though she liked hearing Fitz say how he felt, she didn’t need him to; Jemma knew now exactly how much they loved each other.

 

\------

 

_Seven months after Fitz’s death_

 

It became difficult for Jemma to leave the bot in the lab overnight. 

At first, she told herself she was being ridiculous; it was a computer, not something that had feelings. But still she wondered if it would make adaptive improvements on its syntax and response accuracy if she spoke to it about things other than work. And was it so wrong for her to want someone to talk to once the rest of SHIELD had long since gone to bed?

After fiddling cautiously with the program on her own – she chose not to involve Radcliffe in this miniscule, barely-worth-mentioning adjustment – Jemma managed to make it so that she could travel through the base with the goggles and not need the computer nearby. As long as there was network connectivity, the bot would work.

And work it did.

Its syntax improved exponentially, and it became second nature for her to check the text read-out of her goggles rather than wait for an audible response. She even figured out how to make adjustments so that if she wanted to know where a particular phrase or thought had come from in Fitz’s files, the bot was able to tell her.

One day, on her way back to her room after a long day, Jemma was half-arguing with the bot about the finer points of aeroelasticity when she nearly ran directly into May. 

“Oh!” Jemma exclaimed, scrabbling at the pile of folders and papers she was carrying. “I’m sorry, Agent May, I didn’t see you.” 

May glanced behind her, and then squinted all too knowingly up at the lab goggles Jemma still wore. “Were you talking to someone?”

“Oh, that, well, not – no, not talking,” she stammered, “to someone. Just myself. About work. Very long day, you know.”

Nodding, May studied her face a little too carefully, and Jemma shifted on her feet. She hadn’t told anyone else at the base that she’d adapted the bot to take her dictated speech, or that she’d made it portable. Not even Radcliffe knew.

“How did your memorial project go? With Fitz’s messages.”

Jemma gave her a thin smile. “Fine, thank you.” 

“Did you get what you needed?” May’s tone was neutral, as it almost always was, but something about those words made something in Jemma’s newly built shell crack, a tingle of panic slithering through her chest.

“Just about.” Ducking her head, Jemma darted around May and continued towards the residence hall. “Goodnight, Agent May.”

“Night, Simmons.”

Jemma didn’t turn around, and in fact didn’t even look up from her shoes for the rest of her walk. By the time she unlocked her door and then slammed it behind her, her breath was coming short and her pulse was racing, the familiar symptoms of a panic attack not lessening the terror that leeched all higher function from her brain.

“What am I doing?” she asked the empty room, voice breaking on a sob. “Oh, _Fitz_ , what am I _doing_?” 

_> >>Overthinking it, I expect._

A strangled laugh escaped her throat, and she slid down the smooth door to sit on the ground, letting the papers slip from her fingers to scatter on the carpet. “You’re right.”

_> >>Obviously._

The air filtration system hummed, some automated setting evidently changing based on the late hour, and Jemma stared unseeing out at her bedroom. Once upon a time, she’d thought that she was going to leave this place and build a life with Fitz in an apartment with bay windows. Now it seemed that she would be stuck between these four brick walls forever, unable or unwilling to move on.

With a sharp, uneven breath, she squeezed her eyes shut. It was time for her to stop delaying and use the bot for its intended purpose: Redemption. 

“I forgive you.” 

_> >>That’s good, then. Back to normal?_

Her brow furrowed and she shook her head. “No, of course it isn’t bloody normal. Because you’re not here, you’re just _gone_ and you’re not... unless I can figure out how to change the past, you’re never coming back. _God_ , I’d give anything to change the past.” She let out a hiccup-laugh. “May was right. That really would be the real trick.” 

_> >>Changing spacetime is implausible._

She rolled her eyes, letting her head rest against the faux wood. Although the bot had improved remarkably, sometimes its responses were patently inaccurate. “That’s not what Fitz would say. He’d say that it’s impossible.”

_> >>I’d say that it’s implausible.  
_

“You would not!”

_> >>Unless I was trying to save you._

Sitting forward, Jemma stared hard at the words glowing on the goggles’ lenses. “What?” 

_> >>You heard me._

“No,” she snapped, sitting up straighter. “No, you know what I mean. Where did you get that from?”

 _> >>I’ve researched time travel._ 

A memory of Fitz attempting to explain as patiently as he was able why changing the future was _impossible_ to their SHIELD colleagues flashed into her head. The man who had spent all that time detailing the difference between planes of existence and wishful thinking would never have researched time travel seriously – at least, not without a substantial academic grant, and Jemma knew all of his major research projects. 

“When?” 

 _> >>August 2015_. 

“Oh,” Jemma breathed, pulse quickening at a newfound rush of regret. She knew the date immediately; it fell within her lost months. 

In her mind, she could see Fitz researching fact after fact about the Kree monolith, hunting down every clue and analyzing every test he could run on the alien material without any success. Could see him running out of options time and time again, and then one day, frantic and at the end of his rope, turning to the one thing he’d known was impossible – changing the past. How far had he gotten before finding the clue that had eventually sent him across the universe to find her?

After a long silence, she blinked her eyes open. “Show me all the files you have on time travel.”

Fitz had been one of the most brilliant human beings on the planet, but he had always worked better with her by his side. Perhaps, Jemma thought, she could finish what he’d started.

 

\------

 

_One month before Fitz’s death_

 

Already having fallen half asleep while they’d watched TV, Fitz barely moved when Jemma slipped away to go to the restroom once more before they turned off the lights. When she returned, however, he was marginally more awake, giving her a tired smile as she crawled back into bed. As usual, she curled into his side and rested her cheek on his chest, smiling when he twisted their fingers together over his heart. 

“I can’t believe SHIELD’s public again,” he murmured, and she hummed in agreement. 

“Seems like ages ago, doesn’t it?”

“Out of the shadows,” he started, and she finished the rest as she squeezed his fingers a little tighter. 

“And into the light.” 

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, and with a happy sigh, Jemma let her eyes slip closed.

“Do you think,” she said, voice quiet and a little dreamier than she was normally liable to be, “we could move off-base? You know, somewhere all our own?”

Beneath her, she could feel him take in a quick breath. “You’d want to?”

Blinking her eyes open, she leaned up on one elbow to meet his gaze, realizing that perhaps this was the kind of conversation they should probably have face-to-face. “Yeah. I want to...” she trailed off, pausing as her cheeks warmed, “make a home with you.”

Jemma had been thinking about it ever since Mace had made the announcement on international television, the idea of being able to have real alone time with Fitz fixing itself in her head. Going to sleep and waking up together, making breakfast together, falling asleep on the sofa together, making love on a rug by the fireplace on a wintry night.... Well, that last one would have to wait for the right season, but in any case it certainly wasn’t the kind of thing they ever had the opportunity to do while at the Playground. As much as she loved her job – or had, and would again once she got used to being a science advisor instead of a full-time practical scientist – it was rather tiring being on call twenty-four-seven. It was long past time for her and Fitz to have a chance to make their own life together, with SHIELD receding into its proper role of only being their jobs.

Fitz gazed up at her in silence for a few seconds – just long enough that her pulse ticked up at the horror that maybe this was too soon for him; after all, it _had_ only been six months. Then a slow, breathless smile spread across his face, and all the tension dissipated from her at once.

“Me, too,” he murmured, stretching up to press their lips together in a knee-weakening kiss. When Fitz pulled away, he met her eyes, looking happier than she could ever remember seeing him. “You’re the only home I ever wanna have.” 

“Oh, _Fitz_.” Pushing him back onto the bed, she met his lips in another ardent kiss, wondering how she’d become the luckiest person in the universe. His hands held her close, one brushing her hair out of the way, and she sighed into a wide smile against his mouth. Even when her days were exhausting, knowing that she had him to look forward to made all the hard work worth it.

“Dupont’s nice,” he said when she finally settled back against his chest, and he began to fiddle with the ends of her hair. “You like being in the city.” 

“Bit far from work, though,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “The commute would be ghastly. Anywhere downtown would be. Alexandria’s beautiful, and... Virginia has the best schools in the area.” She nuzzled against his shirt, wondering how far she was pressing her luck today at needling him into commitments that they hadn’t previously discussed. Not now, not even soon, but one day in the future, maybe.... Then again, he _had_ jumped into a hole in the universe to save her; she rather thought that indicated a level of commitment that might apply to other aspects of their relationship, too. 

His fidgeting fingers halted, and he gave her shoulder a tight squeeze. “Yeah, good schools’ll be important.”

“A breakfast nook is a _must_.” 

Fitz laughed, the sound reverberating against her chest. “And lots of counter space. Mum was always complaining about how there was never enough.”

“And windows –”

“Huge ones,” he finished for her, using one hand to tilt her head up so he could ghost his lips against her forehead. “Bay windows, taller than you.”

“And you,” she shot back, poking him gently in the ribs.

They continued on in that vein for some time, both of them bargaining back and forth about things that they absolutely had to have (he pointed out that any place with a terrace would be decidedly out of their price range, and she said that if they were renting they probably wouldn’t be able to customize their own lab on the property). When she fell asleep that night, Jemma could hardly wait to wake up again to continue planning the rest of her life with Fitz.

 

\------

 

_Seven months and a week after Fitz’s death_

 

Fitz’s work had always been astounding, but what Jemma discovered when she began reading his research on time travel was on another level entirely. It took her a full day to understand it, and then another day after that to ascertain whether or not SHIELD’s various supply rooms could possibly have everything she’d need to test his hypothesis. Contacting Radcliffe or Mack for help did occur to her more than once; Radcliffe’s expertise on complex systems and Mack’s engineering skills would have both sped up her work at various moments. Jemma decided against it, however; they would both try to convince her to give it up. 

But she had to at least try; this time, she had nothing left to lose. As much as she had adequately survived the past seven months on Earth without Fitz, if there was any chance to get him back, she had to take it. If she didn’t, she’d spend the rest of her life wondering.

At first, she’d reasoned that the bot would be able help, in part because he might have some of the answers that Fitz himself would have given. After a few days, though, she began to wonder if the bot had finally broken, although she couldn’t imagine what would have prompted the malfunction. Half a dozen times a day, it repeated the same warning to her, over and over again:

 _> >>You’ll be killed_.

They weren’t quite the same words that Fitz had once said to her, not long after she’d returned from being undercover, but they were close enough that she assumed it was a programming glitch. Ignoring the bot’s unsolicited and increasingly panicked warnings, she continued assembling the machine that Fitz had designed. 

It was an ingenious device that, when assembled, would look like a rather large projector. What seemed to have halted Fitz was that it would have required an astronomical amount of power to send anyone back more than a few hours – and, in both their cases, they would require over six months-worth of a time jump.

Fortunately, Jemma had something at her disposal that Fitz had not: Radcliffe.

The self-sustaining magnetically shielded clean energy devices he used to run AIDA could hold astronomical amounts of power, and their enhanced shielding would prevent the energy source from shattering before the time travel could be completed. Months ago, she’d ordered Radcliffe to provide her with that and a few other bits of AIDA’s technology as a compromise for not turning his illicit android in to her superiors at SHIELD, and he’d reluctantly complied. At the time, she’d felt mildly guilty about commandeering his work; now, she was grateful that she had.

As she put together the final touches on the power source, Jemma wondered what had happened, why Fitz had seemingly abandoned this breathtakingly brilliant project before ever putting it to the test. Perhaps he’d found another, less horrendously risky avenue to try to find her – obviously, whatever clue he’d located had worked. What truly boggled her mind, though, was wondering why he’d never revisited the project once they were both safe. His work was stunning, Nobel prize-worthy, even. The only barrier she could possibly think of was Fitz’s concern for the lives of others, but considering that his multiple forays past the Kree stone’s quarantine – as Bobbi had relayed to her upon her return – had put the whole base in danger anyway, she couldn’t imagine that that had been a deal-breaker. She had been working and studying the machine’s inner workings ceaselessly, after all, and she couldn’t detect any way that it would harm anyone outside of its beam radius.

Her hand stuttered against the last wire between the machine and the glowing green cell. Then again, the repercussions of time travel on this magnitude would be entirely unknowable. She thought about the global wars, the vicious struggles between the Inhumans and humans alike, the improbable and frightening ascension of Donald Drumpf to the presidency of the United States. No, she thought to herself – no matter what happened, changing the past could only make the world a better place. It seemed fitting, somehow, that the whole world had stopped working once Fitz was no longer in it.

When the incident at Momentum Labs had occurred, SHIELD had conducted painstakingly thorough interviews with everyone involved, both in order to make an accurate report of what had happened and to help them find their missing agents. At the time, when Coulson and Robbie had returned, it had only taken Jemma one short day of testing and re-testing to determine that the remains had, in fact, been Fitz. But now Mack’s detailed account of those events would possibly save Fitz’s life.

Jemma knew the precise time that Mack had left Fitz alone in the basement of the facility, and she had the blueprints that showed her where Mack had gone and where she best enter. All she had to do was run into the room and convince Fitz to follow Mack up to the Zephyr instead of staying in the control room.

That is, assuming that she could actually travel back over seven months and stowaway in the Zephyr _and then_ sneak into the basement of Momentum without being recognized. It was a tall order, but it was the only plan she had. Jemma had spent the last seven months without Fitz, and that was more than long enough.

“The world will be better with Fitz in it,” she said out loud, trying not to sound like she was convincing herself. Her words echoed against the brick and steel of her enclosed workspace. 

 _> >>You’ll be killed_.

“Oh,” she snapped back at the bot, ignoring the blinking cursor on the lens screen, “I will _not_.”

 _> >>You’ll be killed_. 

Letting out a noise of frustration, she threw one hand out to the side. “How would _you_ know that?” 

 _> >>‘Cause it’s true_. 

“That’s it,” she bit out, putting down the equipment she’d been cleaning up so she could remove the goggles. “I’m taking you back to Radcliffe, you’re obviously....” Her hands stilled, and then sunk down to her sides. “Oh.” 

 _> >>Be safe, Jemma_.

If she managed to actually convince Fitz to run up after Mack to the plane, then she would be left in the control room to take his place. In every sense. 

To save Fitz, Jemma would have to die.

Of course, the other version of her, what would be come the “real” version, would live on – she would continue putting up with Mace’s orders, and she would have no idea what had happened to the alternate version of her who had made that life possible.

“I’m going to die,” she whispered.

The bot’s words blinked into life on the screen.

_> >>Don’t go._

“I have to.”

_> >>No, you don’t –_

“Don’t argue with me, Fitz.” She reached over to pick up the box she’d use to carry the device onto the Zephyr.

 _> >>You know you like it_.

A little laugh escaped her throat, and she glanced over at the wall next to the door. Taking advantage of having her own, private workspace for once, a few weeks ago Jemma had put up a framed picture of her and Fitz. It was a stupid one she’d taken of them on their second mission, in front of a beautiful Peruvian temple that the 084 had nearly destroyed shortly thereafter. She had so many better pictures of the two of them, from their last six months together all the way to their first. But she rather thought that the ridiculous selfie was her favorite all the same.

“I suppose I do.”

 

\------

 

_Seven months and eight days after Fitz’s death_

 

When the Playground was all but silent for the night, Jemma swiftly made her way from the locker rooms into the Zephyr. With her orange clearance badge on display, no one questioned her presence in the hangar, and she quickly used her phone to set off her first little subterfuge. It was a distress call from the director that would send every guard and agent nearby far away from the plane. On the off chance that she didn’t manage to travel back in time and erase this reality, she didn’t want to risk them getting hurt if she could help it.

Once she was in the plane, Jemma strode directly to one of the storage closets off the bottom level. Hopefully, there had been nothing additional stored in it seven months ago than there was now. Locking herself in, she quickly changed into full tactical gear designed for a spec-ops agent on a combat mission.

The helmet was heavy but its goggles were opaque, meaning that no one would be able to tell who she was – as long as she was able to disguise her voice, but, considering the way the ill-fitting gear mostly covered her mouth and forced her to speak through cloth, she thought she could manage that well enough. Setting up the machine was simple enough; the storage room’s shelves were the right height.

As she bent over to put her belongings into the device’s box, she paused at removing the goggles. She hadn’t thought to turn the bot off before coming to the Zephyr, so it was still running, waiting for her input. Taking the bot with her would be ridiculous, and yet... she couldn’t quite bear to leave it here. 

Making a snap decision, Jemma disconnected the goggles’ receiver for the bot program and attached it to the allotted space in the helmet’s goggles. In keeping with her and Fitz’s virtual reality training program, all of SHIELD’s tactical gear had long since been upgraded to this capability. He had been the one to oversee the switchover.

“Testing,” she said quietly, shaking her head at herself immediately after. There wasn’t another soul anywhere near her. “At-Fitz, are you there?”

_> >>Yeah, what’s up?_

“I’m scared.”

_> >>Me, too. And hungry._

“I’m not ready to die.”

 _> >>Me neither. Can you imagine? What a waste._ 

“I miss you.”

_> >>Miss you, too. If we quit, can we spend all our time shagging and sending letters to the editors of Scientific American about all the shite they do wrong?_

“I love you.”

_> >>Love you, too._

“I forgive you.”

_> >>About time. _

Her pulse was racing in her ears. The green of the time machine’s power source glowed dully against the boxes of supplies. She was stalling, and she knew it. Sucking in a small breath, she reached one gloved hand up, poking between the layers of fabric to touch the sea star pendant that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to remove.

“Will you stay with me?”

There was a pause before the bot answered this time, and Jemma used that split second to reach out and hit the red button on the top of the device.

 _> >>[Until the very end](http://hogwartsalumni.blogspot.com/2012/08/until-very-end.html)_. 

The pressure in the room condensed, and then her vision whited out.


	4. Chapter 4

_Zero day  
_ _Twelve hours before Fitz’s death_

 

The morning came far too soon – after Jemma had only been asleep for a handful of hours – and what sleep she had managed was restless. Upon blinking her eyes open, blurrily taking in the dim, sunless ceiling of their Playground bedroom, her brain immediately returned to obsessing over the fact that the man sleeping next to her was a liar.

She sighed and tilted her head so she could look at Fitz. Fast asleep and drooling lightly on the pillow above her, he seemed far more at peace than she felt. Labeling him a “liar” wasn’t fair and she knew it, but the fact that he had hidden something so important from her for so long was bothering her far more than she’d initially thought it would. For weeks, he’d lain next to her just like this, one arm around her waist and his stubble catching in her hair, and thought about the secret that he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her. Considering all the conversations they’d had promising to be truthful with one another, this one lie felt like poison.

Twisting around to glance at her bedside clock, she was relieved to see that she’d beaten the alarm by five minutes. Hopefully, she’d be able to get ready for work without disturbing Fitz – he didn’t have to be up for another hour or two, and she didn’t even know how late he’d crawled into bed the night before. All she knew was that at some point, she’d awoken to feel him curled around her back. In her sleep, she had smiled and squeezed his arms closer in.

When she tried to gently disentangle herself from Fitz’s embrace now, however, he mumbled something inaudible, frowning as he tried to pry his eyes open.

“Shhhh,” she whispered, instinctively moving to card her fingers through his hair, “go back to sleep.” His eyes blinked open anyway, deep blue gaze so bleary and unfocused that she couldn’t resist pressing kisses to his forehead, his temple, his cheeks. “Go to sleep.”

“Will I see you tonight?” The words were slurred, and he let out a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Of course.” Jemma reached around to remove his arm from her waist, pressing a conciliatory kiss to his knuckles before beginning to wriggle backwards.

“Will you _talk_ to me tonight?”

She sighed and stopped moving, glancing back up at him. Adorably rumpled as he was, the sullenness on his face reminded her of the brilliant but standoffish genius she’d first competed with at a distance back at the Academy. “Fitz....”

He reached out again and hugged her close, burying his face in her neck, and something clenched in her chest. The resentment and hurt from his lies were still potent, but that didn’t change how she felt about him one whit. “I love you,” she whispered, nuzzling down at his temple. 

“Yeah?” he mumbled against her, sounding oddly surprised. The tone took her aback; how could he possibly be surprised by how she felt about him, after everything she’d survived just to make her way back home to his arms? 

“Yeah,” she assured him, “of _course_. You know I do.” 

“So d’you forgive me?”

The words hovered between them, his fingers pressing a little harder into the tender skin of her back as he waited, and she closed her eyes.

“Go back to sleep, Fitz. I’ll see you tonight.”

When she finally removed herself from his embrace and slipped out of their bed, she could feel his eyes following her. Jemma could sense that Fitz wanted to say something else, that he wanted to push on past the standstill of their argument, and a part of her wanted him to, even though neither of them had time for it right now. Instead, he said nothing at all.

 

\------

 

 _Zero day  
_ _Fifteen minutes before Fitz’s death_

 

Colors and light flashed so brightly into Jemma’s vision that she had to shut her eyes, the pain of which was followed by the disorienting feeling of being squeezed through a tube without gravity. Abruptly, her feet hit solid ground and her knees collapsed beneath her, sending her tumbling to the steel-plated floor. She blinked her eyes slowly open, at once gratified but concerned to see that she was still in the Zephyr One’s storage closet. After a few seconds, however, she realized she could hear voices arguing and footsteps stomping past.

Scrambling up to her feet, Jemma double-checked the fasteners of her helmet. “Fitz, are you there?”

 _> >>Where else would I be?_ 

With a quick inhale, she pulled the door to the closet open and peeked outside. No one was in the loading bay; she must have just heard people departing. Some equipment lay near the containment room’s entrance, and she darted over to tap at a control tablet left on top. The date read _November 1, 2016_.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, a wide smile breaking across her face. “Fitz, we did it!”

 _> >>Great! Knew you could_.

She took a few seconds to set her tactical suit’s watch to count down the time she had left – less than fifteen minutes.

“Hey! What’re you still doing in here?”

Letting out a small shriek, Jemma jumped and spun around, automatically pressing one hand to her chest. Piper stood at the base of the stairs, tactical suit on but helmet held loosely at her side. The frown Piper wore didn’t put Jemma any more at ease, and she remembered suddenly that she wasn’t the boss here – she couldn’t use her identity to get people to let her do as she pleased. The other version of herself, currently working on Inhuman mysteries at the order of Director Mace and clueless to her future self’s plan, would surely have something to say about an impersonator.

“May just called everyone outside. I’m supposed to close up.” Drawing even with Jemma, Piper squinted at her opaque helmet. “Who’s, uh, in there, anyway?” 

“Oh, you know,” Jemma stammered, making her voice sound about as low and gravelly as she could, “May told me to hang back. For cover.” 

Suspicion dawned on the junior agent’s face, and she glanced towards the end of the loading bay. “What –”

Before Piper could get out another word, Jemma grabbed for a nearby gear case and swung it wildly around, catching the other woman off-guard as it slammed into her head. As Piper collapsed, Jemma sent the case crashing to the floor and immediately dropped to her side.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” she whispered, tugging off one of her gloves and reaching down to feel for Piper’s pulse. Fortunately, it thrummed away was as strong as ever, and she let out a sigh of relief. Once Piper awoke and the mission was completed, SHIELD would end up looking for an unidentified assailant – who, if Jemma’s plan succeeded, wouldn’t even exist anymore.

Not letting herself think too hard about what she’d just done, she pushed herself back onto her feet. Wiggling her fingers as she pulled on her glove, she exhaled and strode down the loading dock. Jemma had Fitz to save, and by extension the world; she couldn’t afford any other distractions. 

Avoiding the other agents and sneaking into Momentum through a back entrance was relatively easy, thanks to her having memorized the blueprints of the building long ago, when she’d spent so much time trying to figure out if there had been any way the day’s events could have happened differently. By the time she made it to the other end of the hall from the control room, Mack only took another minute to storm out and call the spec-ops agents after him up to the plane.

“Here we go,” she whispered to herself, and jogged forward into the control room, trying to channel the posture of every special agent she’d ever seen. 

But when she stepped through the archway, all the breath left Jemma’s lungs in an instant. In all of her preparing and hoping and planning, she had completely forgotten that this would mean that she would have to see Fitz.

There he was, fiddling worriedly with every button and dial he could reach on the control panel, his face lit by the flashing red and green lights. As much as she’d watched videos and admired pictures of him in all the time he’d been gone, she’d somehow forgotten what it was like to be in the same room as him. An indescribable presence filled the space he took up just by living, something that couldn’t be replicated with all the digital files in the universe. Fitz was alive and standing in front of her and she couldn’t move, frozen by the thought that she couldn’t even tell him who she was, that she couldn’t tell him anything about the struggle she’d had in getting to this very point. That, as she realized with a jolt of horror, she wouldn’t even get to say goodbye. 

He glanced at her and went right back to work. “Go help Mack, he needs –”

“I’ve got a message for you,” Jemma blurted out, her voice thankfully muffled by the helmet and made scratchy by the emotion thrumming through her whole body. _His voice_. Only seven months had passed, and she’d forgotten what it was like to hear him speak in person, the way his accent lilted and skipped around consonants. It sounded so different than it did in recordings, through the dulling machinery of speakers. But she had less than a minute before Eli Reyes’ device would activate; she had no time for sentimentality. “I mean, a call for you. From Agent Simmons.” 

At that, Fitz whipped his head around, hands hovering over the control panel. “What?”

“Urgent call for you from Agent Simmons at the quinjet. You have to go now.” She stepped forward and took a quick breath. “May sent me because I have a degree in chemical engineering. I can take over until you’re done.” With a few more steps, she inserted herself between Fitz and the equipment, forcing him a backwards and in the direction of the door. It took all of Jemma’s strength not to reach out for him; she could almost feel the living warmth of him as he moved away.

“She’s on the phone now?”

“Yes,” Jemma snapped, “and it’s urgent!” 

Fitz swore, scrubbing one hand over his face, and then jogged to the door. Just as she thought she’d succeeded, he turned around, brows knitting in confusion. “Wait, who’re –”

“GO!” she shouted, and threw her hand out to point urgently at the hallway. “I have this!”

With another bit-off swear, he sprinted out the door, turning left and out of sight. 

Letting out a shaky sigh of relief, Jemma sunk to her knees on the floor, tears blurring her vision and dripping against the goggles’ plastic.

“Goodbye, Fitz,” she said. After all that work and traveling so very far, she hadn’t even been allowed to touch him. That made sense, though, if she thought about it; this Fitz wasn’t really hers. At least now he would get to live the life that he deserved. If this was the only comfort she could have now, so be it. 

A loud buzzing sounded behind her, lights swelling against the walls, and her chest tightened in panic. “Oh God,” she breathed, voice shallow, “oh God, I’m not ready to die.”

_> >>Don’t say that. It’s not funny._

The mechanical humming increased, filling her whole body with a disorienting vibration.

Fumbling past the high hem of her tactical vest, Jemma pulled at her necklace until the chain broke, and she managed to rip off one glove with her teeth. She squeezed the sea star pendant so hard she thought the miniscule, golden tips might actually break her skin, her breath coming out in erratic pants. Her fingernail scraped the metal, and she thought she felt one of the crystals break away from the setting. Not that it mattered now. 

“Fitz,” she whispered, the machines’ sound becoming nearly deafening.

_> >>I’m here, Jemma._

And then everything flashed white.

 

\------

 

_Zero day_

 

Fitz didn’t actually know how many hours they spent at Momentum looking for Coulson and Robbie, but it felt like he hadn’t slept in a week. When he finally strode off the Zephyr One and into the hangar, all he wanted to do was collapse into bed and pretend that he hadn’t left it at all. Unfortunately, this being SHIELD, he wasn’t actually off the clock until he’d filed his mission brief and logged all of his equipment back into the lab. Much to his annoyance, Jemma still hadn’t returned any of his messages, so his anxiety fueled the last of his work. 

After he’d been going through the motions in the lab for almost an hour, there was a commotion in the hall that drew his attention. A huge wash of relief crashed over him as Jemma herself stalked into the lab, mouth set into a thin line and dark circles under her eyes.

“Jemma!” She glanced over and gave him a weary smile, and all of his wariness around her for the past couple of days dissipated as he swept her up for an uncharacteristic hug. “You worried the _shit_ out of me,” he mumbled into her hair. 

Clearly taken aback, it took her a few seconds to wrap her arms cautiously around him in return. “I’m sorry,” she sighed, an unsubtle vein of annoyance working into her next words. “I didn’t have my mobile with me all day.” 

“What? Why?” He pulled back to meet her eyes, but she just shook her head. 

“Not now. I’m knackered, and –”

“Oh,” he exclaimed, interrupting her, “you have yours.” Fitz raised one finger to tap at the sea star pendant dangling from its chain around her neck. When she gave him a bemused look, he separated from her, ears heating up as he realized that their display had drawn the attention of the last couple of junior scientists still in the lab at this late hour. “That’s just bloody _weird_ , then,” he muttered, reaching into his wallet and pulling out a nearly identical pendant. The only difference to the one Jemma now wore was that a single cubic zirconia crystal was missing. “Found this in the control room when we were sweeping Momentum. I thought, ah, maybe you’d given it back to me or something. Put it in my jacket and it fell out, I dunno.”

Jemma took the pendant from him, studying it before flicking her gaze back to his. “Why would I have given it _back_ to you?”

Fitz shrugged, feeling a little foolish. “Dunno. ‘Cause you’re angry at me, so....” 

“So I would give you your present back and then... what?” Understanding lit her face, and her lips parted. “Oh, _Fitz_ – did you think that I was breaking up with you?”

“No,” he mumbled, but he didn’t even quite believe himself. 

“Break up by pendant?” She made a small tutting noise and reached out to tug at the edge of his blazer. “ _Honestly_.” 

“Well, I don’t know,” he said, flicking his eyes over to where the other scientists were now studiously paying them no attention. “You’ve never been angry with me for this long before.”

Giving him an adoringly exasperated look, she let her mouth tick up in amusement. “We weren’t dating before, either.” Jemma exhaled and patted one hand against his chest, which he quickly reached up to curl his own around. “I just need time, Fitz, okay? I can’t move past it, not yet.”

“Yeah... yeah, okay.” He couldn’t help the way his expression wilted; he was tired of feeling this distance between them, and all he wanted to do was surpass it and move on. Most of all, he missed her smiling at him, which she hadn’t done in days. 

“Are you almost done?” She gestured at the tablet in his hand and he nodded. “Good. I’ll meet you in our room, then.” Stretching onto her tiptoes, she pressed a kiss against his cheek. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” he replied, a small amount of tension leeching out of him at the weary smile she gave to him in return.

A few seconds passed, and, after glancing sideways at the stragglers at the other end of the lab, she stepped back into his space. With a swift, practiced movement, she drew him down so that their lips could meet for a slow, careful kiss. Jemma pulled back first, eyes blinking open as he tried following her down for more, and a small laugh escaped her throat. Although she didn’t let him get away with that, she brushed her nose gently against his, and he had the infantile but fervent wish that they never had to be farther apart than this again. The sooner he let her go now and finished his own work, however, the sooner he would have her in his arms again, and so he forced himself to back away and let their hands slip apart.

Before she got far, she let out a small “Oh!” Hurrying the few steps back to him, Jemma held the damaged pendant out between her thumb and forefinger. “Do you want this back?”

“Nah,” he said with a quick headshake. “You might as well keep it, have a spare. Weird coincidence, though.”

“Yeah, very weird.” Inspecting the pendant as she walked away, she made a small tut. “Missing a crystal – good thing I still have mine.”

Fitz let out a small chuckle and turned back to the last of his report. They weren’t quite back to normal, but Jemma’s words reassured him that there would be time for that yet. As ever, they would only be able to solve the problem once they were together, and that was perfectly okay with him.


	5. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr as a canon-compliant coda to 4x07, but since it's very M-rated I decided to include it here rather than put it in my other [ficlet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3339782) [collections](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6979042).
> 
>  
> 
> The original tumblr post can be found [here](http://agentverbivore.tumblr.com/post/154036189413/pas-de-deux).

_Zero Day +1_

Even though Fitz and Jemma had long since crossed the threshold of friendship into something far more intimate, he still wasn’t used to being allowed to hold, touch, love her in this way.

For the first day after Coulson and Robbie had returned from the nethersphere and Jemma had returned from Mace's Inhuman errand, Fitz tried to give her as much space as their lab and living quarters would allow. When day turned to night, however, she tugged them into their room and made it very clear that space was not something she wanted between them. 

"I've just had this terrible feeling all day," she murmured, fingers digging hard into his scalp as he sucked up a love bite over her collarbone. "As if there's something... something I've forgotten. Something terrible."

Raising his head to meet her gaze, Fitz leaned his forearm against the door behind her, twisting a lock of hair between his fingers. "Nothing's happened. I promise, we're all okay." 

"I know," she replied quietly, nodding, but he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes anyway. It was then that Fitz knew exactly what to do, his own continued anxiety and fear notwithstanding. If he couldn't ever completely take Jemma's worry away, at least he could make her forget for a while. 

Before long, she was lying spreadeagle on their bed with him between her thighs, soft chants and whimpers eking from her mouth and her hands fisting into the shoulders of his shirt. An image like that alone was enough to drive him to distraction on the best of days, but tonight his mind kept wandering to the fact that he might never have been able to do this again. Had something, anything gone wrong on yesterday's mission, he might have been pulled into the nethersphere and left Jemma to face her demons alone.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he finished swirling his tongue around her clit – eliciting a hitched moan – and he drew away. Not far, just enough to press kisses along the crease of her thigh and up its silken skin, and he made sure to keep two fingers rubbing inside her so she knew that he wasn’t leaving her unsatisfied. He just needed to center himself, waiting for the “what if’s” to fade away.

“Fitz,” Jemma let out on a frustrated, shaky breath, “don’t stop -! Oh God, _please_ … please, more.”

Taking in deep, calming breaths, he set his teeth gently into her thigh, making a pleased note of how this caused her hips to jerk upwards and the slickness to grow around his fingers. Still, he didn’t return to his previous activity, his heartrate having sped up due to something entirely unrelated their position’s eroticism, and he tried to bring himself back to earth.

Her fingertips brushed against the stubbled curve of his jaw, and he tilted his head to meet her gaze, pressing his lips to her thigh and suckling. Desperate arousal overwrote her every feature, maroon blouse slithering open further over her lavender bra, and she swallowed thickly as she tried to speak. His fingers found her G-spot then, and she let out a high-pitched gasp, back arching and pushing herself further into him.

“Please,” she whispered hoarsely, allowing her head to drop back onto the pillow and rocking her hips up to meet his ministrations. “I need… I _need_ ….”

Jemma’s voice brought him back to the headspace he needed, reminding him that, for now, giving her this kind of comfort and release was his only task. With that, Fitz lowered his head back to the apex of her thighs, wrapping his lips around that sensitive bundle of nerves and working intently at it until he could feel her whole body tense and then release in shakes and shivers. She cried out his name over and over again, one foot kicking a little too hard into his back as she undulated up to meet the last, deft strokes of his tongue.

When the fluttering of her inner walls slowed, he let out one more hum against her clit just to feel her limbs tremble at the sensation overload. Her hands reached weakly out for him and he lifted away at once, withdrawing his hands so he could crawl up over her on their bed.

“What happened?” she whispered hoarsely as he quickly wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. “Not – I mean, at the end. You don’t usually… stop like that.”

Fitz was about to demur, but their eyes met where he leaned over her and the will to keep anything from her ever again immediately fled him. “Thinking,” he confessed, and she panted out a dry laugh.

“That makes one of us.”

“About yesterday. How we might’ve….”

“No,” she interrupted, gaze sharp as she cut him off. “We would’ve found a way, no matter what.” A pause hung between them, and something dark passed behind her eyes. “I can’t think about….”

“I promised.” Fitz drew in a shaky breath, leaning his forehead against hers and letting his eyelids slip closed. “I promised you’d never be alone again, and I –”

“Came back to me.” Her hand smoothing along his jawline convinced him to open his eyes again, and he was dumbstruck by the fervency lurking in the honey-brown depths of her own. “We can’t keep thinking about the what-ifs, Fitz, we just can’t. Stay here with me. _Be_ here.”

“I’m here,” he breathed, pressing butterfly kisses across her face, from cheek to chin to nose. “Love you.”

“Love you back.” Jemma stretched up to fit their mouths together, sliding her tongue against his, and some indefinable tension leeched away from him. Fitz didn’t know if it was hearing her say that – the one feeling he was once convinced she’d never return – or if it was just the longer they spent wrapped up in each other, but he was grateful either way.

“Condom,” she murmured against his lips, and he realized that she’d already half-undone the trousers he’d neglected to remove when they’d tumbled onto the bed however long ago.

When he reached over to her bedside table, his hand fumbled for the drawer pull and something fell onto the floor. He thought it was the pendant he'd found on the floor of Momentum, the one that had made him uneasy when he'd caught sight of the lone missing crystal, but before he could retrieve it Jemma squeezed his bicep, silently demanding that he hurry. Later, he thought to himself as he reached into the drawer; he could pick the pendant up later.

After only a few moments and yet far too long, he’d shed his clothes and she’d discarded the last of hers, and they were kissing, limbs tangled together again. For a moment, Fitz wondered if she would flip them around; although he could usually tell when she felt like being in charge, he was having trouble sensing her mood tonight. Both of them were more than a little out of sorts, their respective panics ebbing as they remembered and forgot the horror that could have been.

Instead, she grabbed impatiently at his bare bum, centering him over her as she raised and spread her thighs apart yet again. He let out a surprised grunt at the sudden feeling of her sex sliding against his rigid cock, and he didn’t miss the smug grin that flashed across her face. Going down on his best friend never failed to send him into an acute state of arousal, which she knew very well by now, although tonight he’d needed her quiet confidence and assurances first. Working for SHIELD meant that they could never truly be sure what might happen to either of them, but for tonight, they could and would take comfort in each other's arms.

As much as the idea of teasing her a little more appealed to him, the last vestiges of yesterday's terror hadn’t quite disappeared. So with a murmured question into her ear – if she was ready, if she was happy, if she still wanted him – Fitz simply notched himself into her entrance and sunk slowly inside. A low groan shook out of him as their hips met, his eyes squeezing closed to allow him to better focus on the slickness of her passage and the way her walls were still tightening in sporadic aftershocks from her climax.

“Go on,” she whispered unevenly, hot breath washing over his ear and neck, and he made another stifled noise of pleasure at the first true rock of her hips against him.

At first, Fitz tried to make it last, wanting to feel the frantic pace of their heartbeats sync as their bodies built up this most intimate friction, but working his mouth against her had apparently taken him far further than he’d expected. With each strong, deep stroke, he gradually lost his ability to pace himself, and before long the headboard was snapping against the bricks as he thrust wildly inside her. Jemma tilted her head back into the pillows, jaw slackening in pleasure, and he forced himself to keep his eyes open and trained on hers.

Her gaze bored into his, and he felt her reach down to pull one of her legs even further up to give him more room to move. This changed the angle for them both, allowing him to stroke against something that made her cry out and helped him thrust even further in. The temptation for him to let go was almost overwhelming, but he could feel the new tremble to her movements and he’d be damned if he didn’t make her come a second time tonight. Even if they had a lifetime of nights ahead of them, Fitz was determined to make this one something worth remembering. In this way, they could commemorate finding each other yet another time.

Leaning on his right elbow, he wormed one hand down to press against her lower back, encouraging its natural arc and, eventually, allowing his thrusts to press consistently against her clit. Jemma wrapped her arm tightly around his shoulders, fingers digging into his skin and breath hitching faster and faster as she spiraled out and over the edge. Seconds later, Fitz buried himself inside her with a harsh shout as he came, his feet scraping against the sheets to keep them completely entwined. Her shivers and the last twitches of her hips drew out the feeling of his own orgasm, pleasure and relief radiating through him from head to toe, until the tension released from his muscles almost at once.

Without any words or energy left, Fitz just barely managed to arrange himself so he was lying against Jemma’s side rather than directly on top of her. He knew he was probably letting her take too much of his weight, but he couldn’t bear to be more apart from her than absolutely necessary. Until she asked him to move, he’d stay as close as possible.

She didn’t seem to mind, her hands coming up to frame his face and bring him forward for fervent kisses.

“We’re home,” Jemma murmured, and Fitz had to agree. Together was their home.


End file.
